Entries in the 'Unity' Category

The Phases Of War With Pharaoh

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to reveal broken desires or Kelim? Do we reveal them in our aspiration to attain the Creator or in the desire to unite with one another?

Answer: We reveal our broken Kelim only in the desire to unite with each other in order to attain the Creator. And we reveal them more and more each time.

Let’s say that at the recent convention we discovered that on one hand we would like to unite, but on the other hand we do not desire it. Something on the inside stops us; there is some enemy, hater, inner stupor, or Machsom that does not let me come closer to others and unite with them.

This is the first plague of the ten Egyptian plagues or blows to Pharaoh (Pharaoh is the name of the one stopping me). I feel that he does not let me unite with others, even though I don’t yet fully realize: why I have to unite with them, where is the Creator here, and how is it possible to bestow to Him. For now I only have an aspiration to unite.

It will happen differently the second time. We want to unite and we have to be together to attain spirituality because spirituality becomes revealed only in the unity among us. This will become a little bit clearer to us. On the other hand, we will once again feel that something stops us. We demand, “Free us!” But he does not let us go.

The Creator continuously reveals a more powerful ego inside us, “hardening Pharaoh’s heart.” Then we will go out and attack again, and this does not have to happen only at a convention. We will then see that we are unable to do it ourselves; we need an external force. So where is this external force? We begin to desire for the Creator to unite us; then we will break through the Machsom.

Next time we will begin to feel that breaking the Machsom means breaking the Machsom between us. We shouldn’t attack some external boundary. The Machsom is between us, in our hearts, which are isolated from each other by an egoistic boundary.

Afterward, by making another attack, we will feel that we do not need all of this for ourselves; we don’t need it in order to unite and reveal spirituality, but in order to bestow to the Creator through it. This is the “last stop.”

All of this becomes revealed gradually. Once we reveal all of these phases in practice and experience them to the fullest, we will thereby create the right desire, Kli, or vessel for receiving the Light. Otherwise you cannot reveal the Light. The Light is abundantly present, but you have to reveal the right desire or Kli for it; you have to attain the same frequency or the same quality. This is possible only through the actions that come to us as they create a true desire in which the Light will become revealed.

So let us get ready to make the next attack on Pharaoh!
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Unity Day – 11.28.10

Unity Day Around the World, Preparation to the Lesson
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Unity Day Around the World, “We Are the United World Group”
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The World Is An X-Ray Of You

Dr. Michael LaitmanWork in the group takes place in two planes: 1. the greatness of the group, the friends, or the Creator (which is the same thing), and 2. your own insignificance compared to the group and the Creator. If I orient myself in this manner, then I receive the right desire, which enables me to cancel myself and become part of the group.

The moment I really become part of it as just one point, I begin to feel that I am a spiritual embryo immersed in the Light that fills the group.
The faces of the friends that we see around us are not called a “group.” The group is the common desire of souls united with each other and given to me as the place where I meet the Creator. I have to work in relation to this “place” because I am a desire or vessel, and this place is the desire or vessel that I work with in order to become part of it, to adhere to it and expand myself. I can work with it because we have the same nature!

However, I cannot work with the Creator because He is Light. He is the quality I reveal inside of our common vessel (the “place”) to the degree I enter it and participate in it. Right now this place appears to me as filled by separate particles (souls). But if I saw the true state inside, I would see all of them as special souls and spiritual Partzufim united by one connecting net, one desire.

I have to correct my attitude to them in order to seem them as connected, and that constitutes my correction! The group is Malchut of the World of Infinity. There is not a person in the world who isn’t connected with others and is not at the End of Correction.

However, right now I see a different world due to my uncorrected vision, as it is written, “Every person judges to the extent of his own flaws.” When I demand greater inspiration and energy to advance from them, I am turning to my own reflection in the mirror!

The Creator has arranged the whole world we see in front of us in this way. It is a copy of me with which I work. To the degree I demand that the group work and unite, it influences me in response in the same way. In essence I work with myself, as if standing before a mirror and making different faces at myself!

It was in order to accomplish this that the Creator divided my perception of the world into me and everything outside of me so I would have the opportunity to work and attain the inner sensation. Otherwise I would never be able to feel Him. I wouldn’t even understand that something else can exist besides me.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Let’s Not Wait For The Next Convention!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I feel that we can increase the speed and raise our unity to its true height without waiting for the next Convention. How can we do that?

Answer: We are not waiting for the next Convention. We must overcome all the gaps and distances right now. Every person must imagine the place inside of him where our desires unite, and inside them we will reveal the spiritual world, the Creator!

Our common effort to unite together through our desires, our points in the heart, and the demand for the Creator to be revealed between us and to unite us, will make it happen. We don’t have to wait for a Convention to make it happen!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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The Goal Is Not Half Of The Way

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is it that really unites us? Is it faith in the One who is Good and Does Good, this ideal by itself?

Answer: We are united by the Light. None of our ideals and nothing we created will work. Only if we ask the Light to unite us, it will do it. It’s one simple action — yes or no. Only the Light does it!

We are only able to reach the right request, and even that is difficult. This is our only opportunity — to discern our state, to understand what is good and what is bad, to correctly prepare for the next level, a state of greater bestowal where we are more connected together, and to ask the Light to bring us the force of bestowal.

However, when we aspire to unite with one another, we mustn’t see our unity as the goal, but as a means in order to bestow to the Creator. Don’t forget about the Host! At the end of the day, if you always think about your correction and your uncorrected qualities, if you are immersed in this all day long, thinking, “I have to unite with my friends! Why aren’t we united?! Am I uncorrected or are they?” What are you doing this for? You forget about the goal and think only about half of the work! You scream and fuss about, but you are worrying only about the means. But what is it that you want?

We forget that through our unity we must attain bestowal to the Host. There is the Creator and we have to reach the state of bestowal to Him by performing actions so He will enjoy us. This is why we unite.

The end of the action lies in the initial thought. You must always open your path from its final point. That is how everything is planned. Figure out exactly what you want to receive at the end. Then start writing down what phases have to precede it and what you need, such as forces, money, knowledge, and equipment. However, we are screaming at the middle of the path as if it were everything.

This is very important because otherwise we won’t attain even half of the path. Why? It’s because we receive the Light from the final point, from the Creator. That is why I cannot put half of the path as a goal right now. I can only take a small measure of the work as the goal: I want to attain 10 grams of unity among us in order to give the Creator 10 grams of pleasure. Great! Then you have a full action: Rosh (the beginning), Toch (the middle), and Sof (the end). This works.

But if you say: I want to put forth all my energy in order to unite with the group! Then you won’t receive anything because this is just one half. That is why Baal HaSulam explains in his article that Israel (those who aspire to the Creator), the Torah (Light), and the Creator have to be present in every state. Otherwise you veer off the path and don’t move towards the goal. Therefore, the end of the action has to be present in the initial thought.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, The Zohar

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The Work At Night

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, “Introduction of The Zohar,” Chapter “BeLaila De Kala (Night of the Bride)”: Rabbi Shimon was sitting and studying the Torah on the night when the bride, Malchut, unites with her husband. …all the friends, who are the members of the bridal chamber, must be with her on that night and rejoice with her in the corrections that she is corrected….

In order to connect to the text of The Zohar together, it is important not to forego the aspiration to unity. The Light of The Zohar can only enter our unified desire. It does not penetrate one’s individual desire.

We should realize that everything that we read about in Kabbalistic books describes the connection between us. Hence, first, as the preparation for the lesson, we need to imagine this connection for ourselves and only then consider the words of the Kabbalists who describe it to us.

This is how I study the wisdom of Kabbalah, the purpose of which is to correct our broken interconnection. First of all, I awaken the connection that we need to correct in my imagination, and then I attempt to comprehend what kind of connection is being described to me.

We are immersed in pitch darkness of the night and have no idea about our whereabouts. Nothing is clear to us, but we toil in order to prepare the bride, Malchut, our Kli, for “daybreak.” At the break of day, meaning at the end of our efforts and corrections, the shape of our interconnection shows through the dreadful darkness (egoism), and we see increasingly clearer (in the morning light, the property of bestowal) where and how it has to be revealed.

When our interconnection finally shows through the darkness, the morning comes. The state becomes clearer, and the Light, the property of bestowal, the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), is revealed in our connection. Then, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) clothes the Light of Hassadim, and the day breaks. The connection between the groom and the bride, between the Creator and the vessel of our interconnection, our common desire, gets established.

For the time being, we are in a state called “the night of the bride.” We are preparing ourselves. We lack unity in which the Light could manifest itself.

However, we try to find the place of our breaking, groping for the egoism that separates us and the means that we can use. All of this is the work at night, the preparation for the first rays of sunrise.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/10, “Hakdama, Laila de Kale (The Night of the Bride)”

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Open Up The Zohar

Dr. Michael LaitmanNo matter how tired we are from the efforts of reading The Book of Zohar, no matter how tasteless it may seem, during the reading we must all be united in one intention, one desire. This is our shared work in mutual guarantee against the inner disturbances of every person in our thoughts about unity.

We want to sleep and tune out, losing the thread of the narration. We wander around in a fog, and the text does not attract us or elicit any feelings. Yet this is the place that contains the Light, which has to make the correction inside us, bringing us to unity, to the spiritual form.

We have to yearn for unity from our side and wait for an action from the side of the Light so it will turn us exactly into what is necessary. We want to unite and focus on the single desire to be together when every person bows down his head. I make this effort and desire for the Light to perform its action from Above in response.

This is called “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” By means of the Torah we are trying to reveal the Creator. The Torah is the Light that Reforms and unites us, and the Creator will become revealed inside our unity. Let the anchorman keep reading. To me every word is a new drop of Light uniting us into one whole.

I am turning to all of our friends from all over the world: We lack this joint effort.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/10, The Zohar

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How The Zohar Begins

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar requires a special preparation on our part. It is the most powerful source of Light and the force that will change our nature if we correctly prepare ourselves for working with it.

First of all, in our current state we have to maximally correspond to the Upper Light that The Zohar brings us. This is why, as much as we can, we are trying to become similar to the authors of The Zohar, Rabbi Shimon and his nine students. They explain that in the beginning of the spiritual work, the revelation of The Zohar, the Light of Hochma of the World of Atzilut, they are suddenly overtaken by mutual hatred. The Light they attract shines into their desires, and despite their yearning for unity, what arises among them is repulsion. Standing before the illumination of The Zohar, they see that they are opposite to it.

The path begins with the revelation of evil; a person has to feel this every time. Otherwise his first step will be incorrect. It is written, “I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah as a spice because the Light concealed in it returns us to the Source.” This is talking about three lines. The evil inclination is the left line, the Torah or spice is the right line (the Light that Reforms), and the middle line is our corrected soul, the desire of the left line that has been corrected by the intention of the right line.

The evil inclination, egoism, does not come by itself, but under the influence of Light. Then we turn to the right line, the Torah, and the Light that comes from Above returns us to the Source, the Creator, the middle line. The revelation of evil is the beginning of every phase on the path to coming closer to the Creator from zero until the End of Correction. Even the group of Rabbi Shimon, which was on very high levels, went through the same phases.

Without revealing our enemy, we cannot study Kabbalah and attract the Light. We are trying our best to unite, but then we feel that our heart is deaf and that a stale taste lingers in our mouth.

Yet the goal is great and it evokes the need for the Light, the Creator who will come and correct us. We will no longer leave Him alone until He appears and establishes a connection between the friends so we will become a common Kli in mutual guarantee, as one man with one heart in one desire. This is what I demand. Even if I don’t know exactly what this means, even if I don’t have the smallest inclination to unite, I am still shouting together with everyone.

That is how we are approaching the reading of The Zohar, from the desire to unite. Unity will enable us to attract the Upper Light. At first every person is by himself, and then by way of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), we will come to unity.

In this unity we acquire the Upper World. The spiritual degree surfaces inside our interconnection. At first we reveal the evil inclination between us and then we demand the Light that will unite us. Then the Light does its work and unites us in the middle line, in the common desire.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/10, The Zohar

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In The Creator’s Arms

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is living during the last generation an enormous and serious responsibility?

Answer: On the contrary, living during the last generation is not a serious responsibility; life is very good and easy! Everyone cares for me, everything is well, I am surrounded with the love of my friends, and the Creator bestows good upon me through them.

The revelation of the face of the Creator means that life begins to work out, I become healthy, problems disappear, and I feel good and comfortable. And I see the rest of the world around me the same way: I see that everyone has a good life! I see the entire Upper World revealed before me and it is eternal.

I no longer count the moments of my life that were given to me until the day I die without knowing what will happen to me tomorrow; rather, I dissolve in the World of Infinity. So why should I expect this to bring me problems? There is no evil in the world; I “connect for good!” And this is exactly what we want to achieve during our convention, so it will have a constant good influence over us.

All the worries and expectations of difficulties need to be erased and discarded, because none of this exists! At the moment when you connect with friends and wish to reveal the Creator in this connection, you fall under the best possible influence of the Source of all the good. There is no other force beside it that could influence us.

Through the group you connect to the strongest and kindest source of energy. You just need to keep strengthening this connection over all the obstacles, and that is it! We will try to do this over the three days of the convention, and we will see that all of life can be organized and arranged this way. You acquire a fantastic force through this connection, which enables you to achieve success in anything you do in life. But this can only happen on one condition: that you want to be connected with this force because it determines all the actions and events in our world.

And you will absolutely, clearly reveal it. You will feel like a child, grabbing on to the hand of an adult and taking the adult anywhere he wants. Like a little child, who takes his mother or father by the hand and pulls them so they would do for him what he himself cannot do. And you will do the same with the Creator: He wants you to!

Let us hope that we will be able to achieve Him taking us in His arms and helping us do everything we need to do!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/10, Baal HaSulam  “The Last Generation”

The Right To Serve The Friends

Dr. Michael LaitmanHow do we succeed on the spiritual path? There are no other means except greater unification. We must make unity of the highest importance and see it as the only means.

We know that our choice lies solely in being strengthened by and unifying with the environment. We exalt the environment in our eyes and lower ourselves before the friends and the goal. Every action must be grounded in intention: Why am I doing this? How strong is my effort in uniting with the friends? Are we creating the Kli (vessel), the place where the Light will be revealed? In truth, by assisting the group in this endeavor, we implement the principle, “We shall do, and we shall hear.” We can do it. We may not want to, and may feel appalled by it, but we still can bestow smiles and gifts to each other, be courteous, and participate in the collective cause, even without the desire to do so.

We organize everything ourselves, including the Conventions. Even if we had unlimited resources, we would still be doing everything ourselves. In this case, what matters is the collective effort, and indeed, people are arriving from all over the world to work together. Only this kind of preparation will bring us success.

This is what we offer as our “gifts,” where together we prepare all that is necessary, without depending on anyone or wishing to relinquish our participation to outsiders. So important is this opportunity to reach internal oneness by means of external work, that we don’t concede it nor forfeit anything we can do by ourselves to anyone. After all, this is the means to achieving our unity.

In the last two days before the World Kabbalah Convention begins, we have been given a unique opportunity to serve each other. Don’t miss this chance, since the success of the entire enterprise depends and is founded on it. This is the real unification, for this is how we “buy” the friends. I make an effort for them and they do the same for me, and together we raise the collective Kli.
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From the lesson on Rabash’s letter on 11.07.2010