Entries in the 'Zohar' Category

Building The Plant That Will Manufacture Me

Dr. Michael LaitmanAll our work is building the environment. After all you can’t create yourself by yourself. This is what we have to create for humanity these days. If I have to correct myself, how can I do that? I simply need to create around me such an environment, the media and an education system, so that I will be the product of this environment.

But by creating it, I correct myself. It’s because through the process of creation I already begin to feel how it should be built and how I should exist, and accordingly what kind of an environment it should be so that it will affect me. I feel how I should build it now so that it will take on such a form that will influence me.

In the building process itself, we join the operating mind and understand what the Creator wanted to do by the shattering, why He prepared such building blocks, wood and building materials for us, and why we should build this house. Thanks to this we begin to discover Him. It looks as if I am building the environment so that it will correct me, and so that the corrected me will be incorporated in it and then…but it isn’t so. By building the environment I get to know the Creator.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/12, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.30.12

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Igrot, “Letter 27”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let Us Make Man,” Item 177, Lesson 49
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, Item 20, Lesson 12
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Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 64, Lesson 32
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Secret Code To Open The Safe Of The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen we read The Book of Zohar, we must open our hearts. What does a person use to open his heart? What code does he use to crack open the “safe” that locks up his heart, so that it can open up before reading The Zohar?

Kabbalists are called “the sages of the heart” because they treat the heart, the desires, so that the Light of Hochma will enter them.

Therefore, we should think about how we can open our hearts; otherwise, we won’t attain the Light of Hochma. How can we open our desires, so that they will be open for the Light?

The Zohar is like a magic book, which we actually enter. It isn’t a novel that you read in which you picture yourself the hero. When you read The Zohar, you don’t need to imagine, you simply enter it, live there, not as if, but actually so. You enter it and you find yourself there, and the state you were in before reading The Zohar doesn’t exist anymore. You’ve entered by reading and you stay there and have only to advance.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/26/12, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.29.12

Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of RabashLetter 40
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let Us Make Man,” Item 172, Lesson 48
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, Item 19, Lesson 11
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Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 61, Lesson 31
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Weekly Torah Portion – 01.27.12

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Bo,” Selected Excerpts
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.27.12

Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “The Matter of the Association of the Quality of  Judgment with Mercy”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “I, I Am He,” Item 168, Lesson 47
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The Peace,” (Start with: “Now it is vitally important for us”), Lesson 1
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From Within Separation One Gains Completeness

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we awaken envy in the group towards the writers of The Zohar in order to want to be similar to them, to reach their level?

Answer: It is difficult. They are very remote and incomprehensible to us. Additionally, we totally cannot understand what it is for a man to understand all of creation and to be in a place that is full of Light where the laws that manage the entire creation are revealed to him beyond the limits of our world, and to have understanding and feeling for the inclusive nature, of the great mind, the great thought, that operates everything, and that knows the same harmony that connects all the parts of creation to each other.

It is especially from this that all our pleasure comes. In spite of our thinking that pleasure is something emotional, and the desire to receive, as it were, only understands the language of feelings and emotional enthusiasm, it is not exactly so since we receive the emotional enthusiasm from the Light of Hochma (wisdom).

This slightly confuses us and we don’t completely understand what this is. But real pleasure is from obtaining the system of the upper providence and governance, where the Creator is revealed. We don’t obtain the abstract form and the essence but the form clothed in substance, the form of bestowal clothed in our substance, the substance of reception.

Thus the Creator (Boreh) is called Come and See (Bo – Reh) since we come and then see, come and attain. But we attain the Light of Hochma, how it clothes the entire system and manages all its parts from one end to the other. We see how different and distanced the parts are from each other by their egos, by the differences in their attributes, and how connected they are through these forms, the revelation and the completeness. We can’t even imagine that it could connect or complete them. It is especially the connection between the contradictions that gives great joy and the attainment of completeness.

It is that way with everything in our lives. Let’s suppose you see a movie or a certain incident. You are especially impressed that in the beginning the people were separated, opposing each other and suffering, and suddenly reconciliation and completeness appears. This is what most inspires a person. Let’s suppose there is some injustice, and then justice wins, or other situations similar to this; on this is built all creativity.

It is derived from the same upper root:In the beginning we see and obtain the great separation that exists between all the parts of the system, and then afterward, we obtain its completeness. From the separation we obtain the completeness, as it is said, “Cover all transgressions with love,” and the attainment comes from this, the understanding and appreciation of the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.26.12

Shamati #219Devotion
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let Us Make Man,” Item 166, Lesson 46
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, Item 15, Lesson 10
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Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 59, Lesson 30
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A Request That Does Not Need An Answer

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It’s difficult to put all of one’s energy into the request for correction and to come out “empty-handed” again and again. How can we keep from getting disillusioned in the path?

Answer: What are you asking for? To have the true request, or for something else? You don’t need anything besides this. If I turn to Him with a request, I must constantly check to make sure that my request is the best, most correct and precise one, that it hits the goal right on target and I don’t demand anything from it. Why would I need anything else? After all, any answer to it would already be a payment, and I don’t desire payment.

What do we aspire to?
– I aspire to unity, togetherness, bestowal, to give pleasure to the Creator!
– Please, go ahead, you’re doing it.
– I just want to know whether He likes it or not…
But if you find out that you are doing something pleasant for the Creator, that will be the greatest pleasure for you, and you will receive it for your own sake.

By going through all these states, where you don’t receive anything and keep going, and you do it over and over again, you thereby build a screen with which you receive a reaction from the Creator that you give Him pleasure, and this won’t enter your receiving desires, but will be above them.

But for now, if you received a reaction in return right now, this would give you enormous satisfaction. Say you wrote a letter to someone very great, and that person received it and responded to you, saying, “I got your letter.” That would be enough, you would already be happy.

Therefore, as long as you aren’t protected from this kind of pleasure, you won’t receive any reaction in return.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/12, The Zohar

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How To Get Through To The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to funnel your request “through the group,” through unity?

Answer: “Through the group” means that I funnel my desire through the integral system. And if it is able to become similar to this integral system, this is a sign that my desire is similar to the Creator’s desire. It is written, “Make your desire like His.”

If I cannot do this, then I still address Him through the group and ask for the force of correction. But this does not mean that I funnel my desire through the group to the Creator so He would respond to me and fill me with His force of bestowal so I could bestow in practice.

On the contrary, I turn to the group and see how much I hate others, don’t want to be with them, am rejected by them or reject them. And then in these discernments, in the struggles and collisions with everyone, precisely all of these corrupted states are what I raise upward and ask, “Correct them! I am waiting! I want to unite with the others!” Then it’s a wonderful prayer.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/12, The Zohar

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