Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/21/25
Posted on December 21st, 2025 at 10:55 pm
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If a person correctly organizes the three inner qualities—the “candle,” the “oil,” and the “wick”—within themselves, they come to a state called Hanukkah (from the words “ḥanu ko,” “they stopped here”), meaning a short respite in the middle of the path.
“Oil” is our material, the desire to enjoy; it is the content of the vessel (Kli). It is not capable of igniting itself from the light that we draw from outside; it is only with the help of the wick.
The wick must be immersed in the oil and also protrude from it. It symbolizes the screen that we build outside the egoistic desire (outside the oil). That part of the egoistic desire that we are able to include within the screen, that is, the oil that has soaked into the wick, only that can shine and come in contact with the upper light.
But this is only on the condition that the oil cannot merely penetrate inside the wick, but also rise above the level of the oil, the egoism, toward Bina, toward the light, toward bestowal. Only then can it shine!
The light emerges from the upper edge of the wick, where it comes out and loses its connection with the oil, with egoism.
The reflected light, the flame rising from below upward, reaches Keter in the ten Sefirot of reflected light, and there the connection between the reflected light and the force of the receiving desire, the egoism, from which the force of burning comes, almost breaks.
The oil rises upward along the wick, and only there is contact achieved, a similarity of properties between the oil in the wick and the light. Only together can they shine. The light cannot be revealed until it connects with the wick and the oil within it.
By imagining a burning candle, we can understand the inner work of a person: what we must do with ourselves so that our soul attains similarity to the light, to the Creator.
The desire does not disappear; all of it must join the screen, the wick. From it we create our middle line to the extent that we are able to bring the oil, desire, into the wick.
Only a small part of the desire can be included in the screen. The wick symbolizes that core, that thin thread by which the correspondence of our desire to the light is measured.
The screen, the middle line, is built from these two forces oil and wick, left and right. The right line is bestowal, light, and the left is reception, oil.
The middle line, which we create from the two higher qualities of reception and bestowal, is called the soul.
[6599]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 12/13/09, Rabash, Letter 43
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Question: What if you make a wrong choice? I checked everything, did everything, and made a wrong decision.
Answer: How do you know it is wrong?
Comment: As a result, I did not reach my goal.
My Response: But that will be evident after you make the decision.
Comment: After that, when I had already jumped.
My Response: After implementation?
Question: Yes, that is right. I realized I had made the wrong decision. What should I do about it?
Answer: Do nothing.
Question: I eat myself up on the inside after that! I double-checked everything, jumped, and everything is wrong!
Answer: You cannot do anything. There is nothing more to do, nothing to blame.
Question: Not to blame yourself?
Answer: No, absolutely not!
Question: How do I stop myself?
Answer: Relate it to the Creator.
Question: So before I was the one who measured everything? But after it happened…
Answer: The Creator did it. For sure it was the Creator.
Comment: That is, we have now come to the golden rule. I check everything.…
My Response: I decide, I act, and the Creator does the rest.
Question: No regrets, nothing?
Answer: Nothing. That is how it was intended from the beginning.
Comment: If it were possible to live like this, you would have no regrets at all.
My Response: So live like that.
Comment: “Live like that!” I wish I could learn to live like that.
My Response: You should have no regrets about anything! Everything is orchestrated from above.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/11/25
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Comment: Kabbalah says that one should not be afraid of external factors and that what is happening around us does not really influence us, but merely creates a kind of picture of pressure or tension around us.
My Response: What does “does not influence” mean? We see how much influence Hitler had, or Bohdan Khmelnytsky, or the persecutions in western Europe when Jews were gathered from cities or small towns into synagogues and burned alive.
We see what serious reasons there were that affected the people’s attitude toward life, toward the world, and toward themselves.
Question: And why did everyone have the desire to take it out on the Jews?
Answer: Who else could they take it out on? And all those pogroms? That was the only way they “vented” it. The population was deliberately educated and directed so that they would take it out on them.
Question: But why weren’t there some other nation toward which the hatred of the others would have been directed?
Answer: In general, there is only one reason for hatred: the Jews’ failure to fulfill their mission.
Within the Jewish people there exists an inner point of light, and it cannot be explained. It is of a mystical nature and cannot be correctly understood or perceived by anyone else.
A person feels that there is something in them that is different from me. Moreover, something that I subconsciously feel is not just about oppressed people; no, they are special. They have something.
On the one hand, they gave me religion. All of their ancestors are my gods. I worship all of their ancestors. For example, in the center of St. Petersburg there stands St. Isaac’s Cathedral. I call all my priests by their ancient names. I took their entire religion from them.
And yet they still cling to it and do not want to accept what I made from it. By their very existence, they prove that they are the ones who are right, not me.
And I cannot destroy it if they do not accept me as their successor. They must accept it, not just agree out of hopelessness or simply stay away.
If they do not accept this, then my religion is worth nothing, my world is worth nothing, and the future world that I have drawn for myself is also worth nothing. That is, their mere existence confirms that everything that I have invented for myself about the future world is incorrect.
Question: The nations of the world say: “We hate the Jews.” But Jesus Christ, was he not a Jew?
Answer: It does not matter. All of this has to be justified somehow. I do not think that anyone really understands it at all. In all religions it is so convoluted. What can you do? We are already at the end of all this; there will still be surges. All of this will lead to another huge war, perhaps not only a spiritual one, but also a physical one. There is nothing that can be done about it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. External Factors, or Why Does Everyone Hate Jews?” 9/14/10
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Question: In “The Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” a system is described that seems external to humans. How can I imagine it as relating to me, within myself?
Answer: There is no soul in my animal body, no ten Sefirot of the soul. I only have a point from which I have to build them.
It arose in my egoistic desires. If I can connect to other points in the heart with my egoism, then my ego will give me material desires, and connection with other people will create a structure of nine Sefirot within me.
I myself turn into the point of Malchut, into the tenth Sefirot, and my first nine Sefirot are my attitude toward other people. All other souls, everything in front of them, the whole world, and everything around them are my nine Sefirot (Tet Rishonot).
And if I connect them to myself with love and understanding that we are one, and rise above my egoism, if I can rise above my Malchut in order to bestow, then I will connect these external properties of giving, and my soul will arise in me, a complete Partzuf of ten Sefirot.
Where do I reveal the Creator? In the very desires that I have acquired by bestowing to others.
Everything that is around a person is his own soul structure. But after the shattering, the fall into egoism, I want to use these parts of myself egoistically to get everything that is in them.
Now I need to return to bestowing to them, to connect them to myself with love, and I will reveal the light of my soul in them. In myself, in Malchut, I will never reveal the light, because the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) cannot be canceled.
Therefore everything depends on how I get out of myself and connect with other souls, how I feel their desires as if they were my own. In this common desire, I will reveal the Creator.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson, 9/8/2009, Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Sulam [Ladder] Commentary,”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic of “Hanukkah” (12.23.2016)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Recording of Rabash, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, “Inner Observation”
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3rd part of the Lesson — Conversations of a Kabbalist with His Students During the Day
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Question: It would seem that the greater the number of people a person comes into contact with, the higher the risk of catching something and falling ill. Yet studies show that a person living in isolation from others has a much higher chance of dying from disease. Why does this contradiction arise?
Answer: There were periods in human history when terrible epidemics raged in Europe. Because people lived densely in cities, these epidemics led to real catastrophes and claimed millions of lives. If a person lived in a remote village, they had a better chance of escaping an epidemic.
But today humanity has already passed through this era of major epidemics. Recent studies show that in our time, a sense of connection and happiness has such power that it can overcome all problems and illnesses. After all, we live in a different era.
I read about a study conducted at some university involving three teenagers suffering from extremely severe forms of cancer. They were asked what they would like in their lives, and they were promised that any wish would be fulfilled. One boy wanted to fly in an airplane in the pilot’s cockpit, and one girl wanted to be a queen. All these wishes were fulfilled.
For the girl, a royal reception was organized at the university. Students dressed in historical costumes paid her royal honors. After this, it was discovered that the patients’ conditions improved by 80%.
Of course, it is impossible to treat all diseases in this way alone. There are diseases of different levels—inanimate, vegetative, animal, and human depending on which systems of the body are affected. But cancer in particular is very susceptible to such influence, and it retreats in the face of a feeling of happiness. Happiness heals even in the most hopeless conditions.
In such cases doctors advise patients to do what they enjoy: travel, drink wine, enjoy life. And the most healing thing is the support of one’s surroundings—love, help, and protection. The problem is that people often act in exactly the opposite way, and begin to pity the sick person and cry together with them. By doing so, they immediately bury them.
The further we develop and attain connection with the force that sustains all our life, the entire universe, and all levels of our existence, the better we will learn to heal all problems through the feeling of happiness. And we will understand that happiness is attained only within connection.
That is, first and foremost we need unity. By uniting we reveal the connection between us, within which we feel the force that unites us and gives us a feeling of happiness. And through this feeling of happiness we heal all problems.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 242 – Happiness And Social Ties,” 10/17/13
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Question: On what basis do I choose which states to keep and which to discard for the sake of adhesion with the Creator? What do I rely on?
Answer: On what you have already experienced. Now you have reached at a state in which you already possess a certain part of the path, when, as it is said, “the Knower of secrets testifies about him that he will never again return to folly.” That is, the Creator guarantees this state to you.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/25, Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”
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A “day” is not when there is sunlight, but when spiritual light is revealed to a person. This may happen once in several months, once in a lifetime, or every single moment.
And each time a person attains a revelation, it must be complete and perfect. Therefore, one is obligated to say: Hear, O Israel, the Creator is our God, the Creator is One!
This means that he has attained “One,” that is, the understanding of the one, unified force of nature.
“Hear” means the degree of Bina (hearing, ear). “Israel” means one who aspires “straight to the Creator,” Malchut rising into Zeir Anpin, and together with it ascending to Bina. The Creator is our God; the Creator is One means that everything unites in Bina into a single whole.
The souls that unite together in Malchut join Zeir Anpin, then Bina, and all together are included in the word “One.”
The word “One” sums up all the corrections a person has made, arriving at the state “He and His revelation are One” (Hu veShmo Echad). Therefore, the prayer Hear, O Israel, the Creator is our God, the Creator is One is a sign of the correction of the degree and its fulfillment.
This is how we must reveal our state at every degree, i.e., every “day.” “To say” means not only to attain, but also to be able to express what has been attained.
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Preparation for the Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/10, The Book of Zohar, “VaYakhel“
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