Entries in the 'Women’s Spirituality' Category

Equal Rights, But Don’t Mix

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can a married man and an unmarried woman discuss the greatness of the goal in a single circle?

Answer: This is not easy, but it is possible to delineate the wisdom of Kabbalah with all the rest and orient yourself so that the entire difference between men and women disappears: with whom you are dealing with, how, and why.

But this requires serious, permanent work. For spirituality there should be a particular time, for materialism, another time. It is even necessary to give the body what it requires. Everything depends upon who the people are, what the connections and situations are.

I think that nevertheless it is better to conduct discussions in separate circles to prevent problems that can appear between the sexes and can very quietly lead people away from the goal, confusing them, and making them unable to separate from obsessive, disturbing thoughts. As a general rule, all kinds of arguments, issues, and conversations arise.

I am in favor of giving people equal rights, but not mixing. Give women all kinds of preference in all kinds of things, show them signs of attention and respect and in no way show disrespect.

Respect their readiness to invest themselves in the common goal, ask them to help you so they will not distract you; they are stronger than men in this regard.

And women must understand that the purity and morality of the group is in their hands. If they want, they will behave so that the men will not even look in their direction. In such a case you will truly have a strong and good group.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 6

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Not Everything Has Been Said About Love Yet

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: With us, it is customary that the men’s group works separately on love toward friends, and the women’s group conducts its own work. If love of friends relates both to women and men, in what way do we do this work?

Must there be separate circles for men and women or can they be mixed and these subjects be discussed?

Answer: What exactly do you want to talk about? Is it about unity, about love of friends?

If I love a friend, I don’t pay attention to his outer appearance. His yearning for the goal is what is important to me, his connection with the Creator. In this case, some kind of unisex appears before me, not a man and not a woman, but something yearning for the Creator, and that’s it!

I understand that the physical appearance of a woman before a man disturbs him a lot. For a woman, it is less; for a man, it is more. In this case, it is necessary to separate the circles. There is nothing else to be done. We still have not reached the desired correction or the required power of yearning forward. The Creator, in the meantime, is less important for me than this physiological being that is shining in front of me. I cannot elevate it higher within me than her physiological body.

What is there to do? In a case like this, the women need to be distant from the men to help them so that nothing will distract them from work between them. However, in the future, we will look at each other as follows: a physiology, we need children, so we mate with each other (excuse me for talking this way), whereas, in love for the Creator, we are emotionally connected. This means that we separate the beastly level from the human level and exist on two levels.

Question: Which subjects are better to discuss in separate circles and which in mixed circles?

Answer: About love for friends and everything that is related to mutual closeness, it is better, in the meantime, to discuss separately, and all the rest that touches upon work with the external public—the understanding of particular articles, various subjects that don’t belong to love, to unification, and to mutual closeness—it is possible to discuss together.

It is even possible to discuss the greatness of the goal together. For men, it might be seen that it is not serious to talk with a woman about the greatness of the goal. However, it is necessary to get used to it gradually. This is because, ultimately, as we move forward, you will see how much a woman can stimulate and inspire a man to attain the Creator, to give an undetectable push, to remind, or even to show him how much she is faithful to this in comparison to men so that he would be ashamed.

I know this for myself. Very often, I have gotten from my wife, seemingly offhandly, very valuable advice. I don’t know if she understands exactly what she is saying, but the Creator speaks with me through her.
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From lesson 5 of the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14

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Discern The Creator Through The Curtain Of Our World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You gave a task that the women shouldn’t gossip or slander. There was half a day of excellent relationships between us, and after that, various kinds of interpretations and evaluations began, and ultimately, everything was broken. How do we rise above this?

Answer: You must understand that the Creator wants to raise you to the next level and arranges situations like this for you so that you will work on it.

Question: What exactly can I do when I see that everything is falling apart, both inside and out?

Answer: Show an example of the opposite, which works on you positively, for everyone around you are ideal, and, in your ego, they only seem to you as imperfect. However, don’t let it turn and manage you. Rather, in spite of it all relate to them with absolute love.

Speak about this amongst you. In what way does the Creator work with you? How does He plays with you, and you are fools dragged around by the Creator. He shows you how weak you are in your unity in order to oppose participation in His exercises.

This is nothing more than an exercise. Unfortunately, you don’t perceive that everything comes from Him. What is the connection here to some woman who said something hostile about her friend? All of us are puppets on strings, robots. That is how you must perceive everything.

I must look at the group as an ideal collection of “gears” that the Creator manages ideally and I see that everything is imperfect so that I will be able to make this situation into an ideal one in my thoughts and feelings, and the next exercise also will be directed toward an even more ideal state.

That is how I constantly raise myself from this level. If you were to react correctly, then the changes in states would not happen after half a day, but in another hour, and afterward, every minute, and after that, every second. You would quickly complete the work of this system.

If a person doesn’t feel he is in front of the Creator and between them is this world—like a semi-transparent screen through which he constantly wants to see the Creator—if he doesn’t direct himself in this way, then he has no correct reaction to reality. He is immersed in a game with this screen on which are stuck all kinds of decorations, our entire lives, and everything that we imagine to ourselves, and we participate in this illusion.

However, if, through this falsehood, he constantly tries to see the Creator, who is deliberately arranging all of this for him, this already becomes a proposal to direct himself permanently toward the Upper Light.
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From the Convention In Sochi “Day Two” 7/14/14, Lesson 3

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Spiritual Partners

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The family influences every aspect of a person’s life. If a person has a problem in the family, he cannot actively participate in the group or in any kind of work. The more we advance, the more we understand that without the group’s support it is practically impossible to hold on in the framework of the family. How can we establish an environment that will support a person in that respect?

Answer: A family is just like the group. Otherwise it could not exist in this world.

But today there is a crisis in the family and everyone is getting divorced and no one wants to live a normal life. Everyone understands that the traditional family doesn’t exist anymore, which means that a new type of family should emerge.

In the future, people will live with one another partly for the sake of the children, for the common property, but mainly for the idea. If I feel that I advance and my wife advances too, since our goal is above all the daily corporeal differences between us, our family will stand the test of time.

I believe that a person should raise himself to this level when he chooses a partner for life according to this idea.

My teacher, Rabash, used to say that from a physical perspective, it is enough that two young people like each other and the appearance of one doesn’t repel the other and that’s all. Everything else is meaningless since they are spiritual partners.

In order to achieve this, we have to develop the group this way, so that women take part in it, disseminate, and are incorporated into meals and into all group matters.

We should pay attention to them and treat them like partners, so they will feel how important they are and will feel that they benefit from this kind of life and from their participation in it.

By the way, a woman can incorporate into everything very easily, especially if she participates in it with her husband and they share views rather than just physical aspects.

We should pay attention and engage in this. Otherwise, there will be a divorces and the formation of new families. We have no other choice. Even if we had a choice, we would still have to include women in dissemination and in our collective life. Respect them, pay attention to them, and give them a place.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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A Man Is The Head And A Woman Is The Neck

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “VaYikra,” Item 63: A person shall sacrifice means to take out the one who has not wedded a wife, since his sacrifice is not a sacrifice, and he has no blessings, neither upwards or downwards.

This means that it says a person shall sacrifice, and he is different, and he is not a man and is not part of mankind, and the Shechina does not dwell upon him, since he is flawed and is called an invalid, and an invalid should keep away from everyone, and all the more so from the altar in order to bring a sacrifice.

An unmarried person is a person who doesn’t want to work with his ego. He has only one part, the male part.

In our world it’s expressed in a person who doesn’t want to take upon himself the special burden of worrying about a family and prefers to lie comfortably on the sofa, reading the paper, or watching a football game on TV. Whereas, in the spiritual world, he doesn’t want to work with his ego. Therefore, he cannot be called Adam, a human being, since Adam is the image we gradually raise inside us by correcting our ego to altruism.

By building an image inside us that resembles the Creator, we attain the state of Adam, which means the one who resembles the Creator. A person who really engages in spiritual correction always clarifies his ego, struggles with it, and discovers its correct form. It’s the work a man has to do with his “wife,” with his other half, which he builds inside his corrected ego.

Question: How is this expressed in our world?

Answer: Today the role of women in the process of spiritual correction is very important. They understand the method of correction correctly and take an active part in fulfilling it. I truly bless their actions and their serious impulses and their yearning for the goal. They help each other greatly and they also help the men.

As our world develops, there is an increasingly greater need for their participation, which confirms the saying that the man is the head and the woman is the neck, and when the neck turns, the head also turns in the same direction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/24/13

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A Women’s Circle Of Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The women have conducted a very powerful friends’ meeting. It wasn’t easy. We had to make great efforts and we felt the connection between us. How can we focus this connection on the men now in order to connect with them?

Answer: Women go through states that are more difficult than the men and it requires greater overcoming. I really appreciate the women’s efforts and hold great hopes on them. The men’s success greatly depends on the women, but it is much more difficult for the women to connect, so I am really delighted by their efforts.

The moment women can connect correctly, they will discover the bridge that connects them to the men. It will be one woman that is ready to connect to one man. But first you have to reach a good, strong connection between you.

It is much more difficult for women to connect than for men. A man feels that he is free like the wind, that he is not tied to a home. A woman, on the other hand, is called “home” which means that she has a very individual character and wants to have something of her own, her own place, her own family. Thus, the connection between women must shatter the partitions that separate them and this is much more difficult than for men. We see that friendship between men is much more meaningful than friendship between women. This is nature.

It is very hard work and I truly appreciate it, but you can easily overcome it if you ascend above your female nature. There is no need to delve into your flaws but rather to advance and ascend to the good, to the connection.

When women are able to connect, they attain the ability, understanding, mind, and heart that guide them as how to help the men. For now you can’t help the men, you have to connect between you.

In the past we were on an evolutionary level where women couldn’t connect and the woman’s role was only to support the man. But we have reached a new era now in which the men connect between them and the women connect between them. Later we will see how we form a circle within a circle.

In the meantime, we are working only on connection and there is no need to look at the future or at the past. Today our work is the connection between the men and the connection between the women in order to reach mutual guarantee inside every circle.
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From the Talk at a Meal 1/26/14

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The Ideal Woman At A Convention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should a woman ideally carry out her role at the three upcoming conventions?

Answer: The ideal woman includes all of the women of our world group within her. All of the women are connected together; they nullify their ego, their desire to gossip, to criticize, and their mutual disdain.

And it is not that they have forgiven each other’s shortcomings; rather, they truly feel that we are becoming one body. Our intellect and emotions detach us and bring us out of this common collective body by giving each one the illusion that she exists separately from the others.

We come to the convention in order to discover the truth, to see with the undistorted view that the whole world is one system. There is only matter that was created by the Creator “from nothing” in which the power of “something from something” dominates. Only love and connection dwell in the world. And that it seems to us otherwise is only because we are not like this ourselves. If I change myself in order to connect with others, then I will directly feel the upper world, here and now. Nothing else is needed other than changing our perception.

The ideal woman of Bnei Baruch feels this higher system, is included within it, and looks at the world with corrected eyes. I dream to see such women.

Question: How do we do the maximum? How do we focus on the inner work in order to attain this ideal image most rapidly?

Answer: We start from here, that all of the particular problems that exist in a group begin to be perceived and corrected as a common problem in a family. And we are even more than a family, we are one body. Even a hundred years ago Baal HaSulam wrote that the world of today is one family, one system. But we didn’t see this until now. We hope that now our Bnei Baruch group will ultimately become one united woman and one united man. And then these two halves can connect with an immense merger in which the Creator is discovered. We are already very close to this condition; so come, let’s hasten our advancement towards this.

I expect to see everyone as great as a result of the convention. And the women will play an even more important role here than the men. We know that women quietly determine the whole order of our lives. Therefore, I very much hope that the women will help us to rise over the course of the next two weeks in a meaningful way. After the convention we will already meet on the next level. I wish all of us success!
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From Kab TV’s Preparation to the Convention 1/24/14

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Equality: This Is The Key To Success

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is to be done if a man refuses to participate together with women in dissemination or other events?

Answer: And the Americans are asking this? They should take an example from Israel. With us, women participate in external dissemination not just equally with men, but ahead of them. We give the right of way to women because wider circles relate to them with greater sympathy than to men; they are better and more quickly accepted, and the external public more readily agrees with them.

If the group disparages women, then it cannot disseminate widely. This is the most loyal part of the general world group. I rely on them more than upon the men. They are faithful, strong, have a greater power of endurance, and don’t keep grudges, whereas men are weaker, flighty, and this is our problem.

Our only benefit is we can search for ways to go forward, and we are creative. The women are not. They are masters of implementation. Therefore, we need to use this and complete each other.

Women who go out for integral dissemination always can prepare and advise you about what is better and what is worse. They feel the audience better and so forth, because the man fantasizes all the time, whereas the woman is more grounded.

It is foolish to emphasize my “self,” that my “self” is seemingly male. This doesn’t exist in spirituality. Can there be a spiritual Kli without the feminine part? On the contrary, everything that the man does accumulates and grows within her. She produces and develops, but we sow, irrigate, and do everything so that birth and growth will emerge from her.

A group that advances successfully is a group in which the men and the women have equal rights and understand how they can complete and develop one another mutually.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/23/13

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The Power Of The Female Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe’ve heard about the groups of Kabbalists throughout history. They were special and got along very nicely together in small groups that consisted of only men.

There were cases in which a father would teach his daughter, like Rambam, for example. Or a brother who taught his sister, like Moses and Miriam. There were female prophets, women who reached very high levels of spiritual attainment by themselves, but in all the previous generations it wasn’t customary to let women join the group work.

In our times however, we are witnessing very interesting changes. We already discovered, during the time of Rabash, that women are also attracted to the wisdom of Kabbalah and integral education, they are driven by an inner desire. If a person has an inner desire, then everything is open in front of him.

Rabash was the first to change the ordinary framework, he arranged the wives of his students into a group that received his articles about the society, about group work, connection, and they used to clarify them with the other study materials. Rabash arranged for a place where the women could gather and listen to the lessons of the men’s group.

It was a real revolution. In the past women could never come near someone who studied Kabbalah, but Rabash opened this study for all women. He discovered that they have the same deficiency now, the same point in the heart like the men. We actually see that women today are even more determined to adhere to the spiritual path than the men.

This together with the global crisis gave us a global opportunity for the correction of the world. Today there are no differences between the men and the women in the group. They have the same roles in disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah and especially the integral education. These roles are becoming more similar every year and the differences between them are blurred and actually disappear; I am very happy about this. The more strong women we have participating in our work, in our dissemination, and in all our social life, the more stable, and loyal to the spiritual path we are.
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From the One America “Virtual Convention” Day One 11/16/13, Lesson 1

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Where Do You Find Equal Rights?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is there a difference in the men’s and the women’s path in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: In our world there is a big difference between men and women in the way of thinking, in the approach to life, in the comprehension of reality, and in decision making. We are truly very different. The difference is not just in sexual characteristics. These are two worlds: the male half and the female half of nature. Indeed, in the still, vegetative, and animate nature there is a division into male and female parts, and the differences in the human are even greater.

But when we begin to search for the Creator, then on the physical level, the gender differences regarding our physical properties apply in a group and in connection within a group; whereas, in the spiritual world this is not so. Women who approach the Creator have the same opportunity as men, especially in our time.

I believe that the wisdom of Kabbalah is the only area of human activity where the woman is equal to the man. This is an interesting paradox. There are absolutely equal rights.

In no other physical involvement can you be equal to men: in some things you are better and in some things they are better. Give me the name of a famous painter, famous musician, famous conductor, or chef. Mention the name of at least one woman, there aren’t any!

In our world there is a clear distinction in certain male and female abilities because we are separated. And in the spiritual world, where all of us are going towards connection together, and our spiritual component is what is created as a result of the unification, then there is no difference, rather only wholeness. Therefore, in the spiritual world there is no male or female soul, female or male group. Everything is mixed into one complete unit.

We are gradually reaching this. This is not a simple way, for we are still expected to do a lot. But in the end of the matter, by discovering the Creator in our common unity, we will see that there is no difference between the male and female forces; all of our efforts become shared.

Now we are still in the preliminary stage of the development of our soul. And it is one for all. None of us has a soul of our own. This is that singular organ, singular Kli, in which the Creator is revealed, “Malchut of the world of Infinity, one singular desire!
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From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 3

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