Question: All of us to a greater or lesser extent have pride. Can it be used for working on unity and for advancing toward the Creator?

Answer: Only if you manage to suppress your pride. That is its use.

Pride is a great force. If you can use it correctly, you will rise above all. Then you will face the challenge of rising even higher.

Question: What does pride transform into when we use it correctly in the ten?

Answer: Pride transforms into help, as if yet another door to the Creator is opening.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/18/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Sing unto the Lord, for He Has Done Pride

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However, before we achieve the completion of the degree, we cannot know anything for certain. This is called “learning first, understanding next.”

A little one, who begins to eat bread, still has no knowledge, but only of the bread. And when beginning to grow, he begins to understand that there is a reason for the bread, which causes the shape of the bread (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 166, “Two Discernments in Attainment”).

Question: How can one feel the attainment of the spiritual degree if it is impossible to talk about the final result?

Answer: In our world we also do not see the final state, but gradually, from degree to degree, from state to state, we attain partial causes and results, then another cause, and another partial result. And so we rise through the steps of attainment.

Question: By uniting in tens, how do we transfer some states from one to another if it is impossible to fix something in common?

Answer: But this is how we learn. That is not yet attainment, but simply steps to the Creator like in school and as in life. As explained in the example of a child who through the fact that he is given bread to eat, begins to understand where it comes from and what it is. So it is here.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Two Discernments in Attainment”

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Question: When we form a prayer in the ten, what should we wish for: for the influence of the Creator to spread in the world or for people to simply have an easier time?

Answer: In principle, it is the same, it depends only on the degree of the revelation of the Creator. Either He reveals Himself very slightly, and then it becomes easier for people, better, or He reveals Himself a little more, and then humanity’s eyes are opening.

We have come to a state where we desperately need His revelation, otherwise we simply will not survive.

The Creator has already brought us to the point where we must realize that we need to grab onto Him and move with Him to the general correction.

Comment: I have such a desire for the Creator to come into the world and begin to govern. This desire just weighs heavily on me.

My Response: This is what the Creator wants to achieve.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/17/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Field that the Lord Has Blessed”

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Se’arot mean Hastarot [concealments], from the word Se’ara [storm]. It is known that “The reward is according to the sorrow.” This means that when there are Se’arot, it is a place for work. And when corrected, hair comes over the storm, by way of “This is the gate to the Lord” (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 101, “A Commentary on the Psalm, ‘For the Winner over Roses’”).

Correcting storms means rising above all doubts and disagreements and uniting with the Creator.

We must rise together to the level of the Creator’s gate and ascend to the place of the sons of Korah. The Sons of Korah (b’nei Korah) represent the level of Bina, and above it is the level of Hochma.

Therefore, the main thing for us is to rise to the level of Bina, and when we acquire its qualities—the qualities of bestowal, we will be able to enter all the gates.

Question: What is the sensation of “the gate of the Creator”?

Answer: We cannot convey spiritual sensations to each other. They can only be felt if a person enters the gate of the Creator and ascends to that place.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/14/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Commentary on the Psalm, ‘For the Winner over Roses’”

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Question: Is it possible to say that I want to get into a habit that the next time a disturbance shows up, I will react by not getting stuck in it?

Answer: You can say what you want. Anyway, you are being led by the path necessary for your soul.

Question: What kind of mutual guarantee should we build between us to avoid straying from the path and staying connected?

Answer: Always justify your friends.

Question: How can we remove the disturbances in the relationship between the ten, the group, and the Creator? How can we enter the congress correctly by renewing our relationships?

Answer: Every day, a person must cross out his past and start the day from a new page, especially at a convention.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Matter of Preventions and Delays”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Moses Went – 1”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Michael Laitman on the Times of Israel: “Are We More or Less in Danger of Nuclear War Now Than During the Cold War?”

Today, there is talk that the risk of using nuclear weapons worldwide is currently at its peak since the Cold War. The nuclear-armed nations are relentlessly increasing and modernizing their weapons, showing no inclination toward negotiations, peace talks or reducing their nuclear arsenal. We used to hear about this topic a lot more in the 1970s and 1980s, but it has since faded away for some time. But the concern is back and the number of nuclear warheads in the world is rising for the first time since the Cold War.

One of the key differences in the nuclear weapon discussion today is that there is no talk about reaching any agreements, which was the case in the past. The unabated growth of egoism—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—has made negotiating a pointless endeavor because striking a deal with one country still fails to account for 20 or so others that will not bother negotiating.

It is indeed a grim reality and there is no way out. Everyone is simply sitting on their nuclear arsenal in a state of mutual distrust. World powers continue accumulating weapons, and countries that previously had none also enter the picture.

Is there a way out of this nuclear arms race? The bleak scenario is that we will blow up the entire planet. The more hopeful one is that we will start applying connection-enriching learning to our lives, inverting our egoistic nature of self-benefit at the expense of others to its opposite—a desire to use ourselves to benefit others—and by doing so, we will either destroy weapons made to harm and kill, or repurpose them for peaceful purposes, in the process.

It seems unrealistic to think that everyone will positively connect, and that this is the solution to the increasing nuclear anxiety—because it is indeed unrealistic.

When does it become real? All we can do is keep working on ourselves to become more caring, supportive and loving, and also continue spreading the word about how to rise above our egoism to relations of mutual consideration.

I know that this is how I will live until my dying day, and then life will go on. I trust that more and more people will think in such a way, applying increasing efforts to advance a unified human consciousness until it will eventually all click into place.
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Michael Laitman on the Times of Israel: “World Kabbalah Convention, January 2024”
World Kabbalah Convention, January 2024

We have just finished our World Kabbalah Convention with Kabbalah students attending from all around the world. Everything we did—the study, the meals, the social discussions and the songs—was aimed at a heart-to-heart connection to reach a whole prayer.

It was truly the first convention of its kind in its profound internality. It was something indeed very special, and it now serves as an example for the future.

Around the world, students connected virtually from dozens of countries, and in some cases, students traveled long distances to gather physically in mirror conventions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Florida, Toronto, Guadalajara, Sao Paulo, Santiago, Togo, Barcelona, Dordrecht, Vilnius, Minsk, Tbilisi, Kyiv, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Crimea, Vladivostok, Baku, Budišov, Astana and Almaty.

In Israel, over 1,600 students gathered in our center from all over the country, including many evacuees from the north and the south, as well as many with sons and daughters serving in the army. Along with the difficult states we are experiencing in Israel and around the world, the heartfelt connection we established at this convention was sure to bring great contentment and joy to the Creator. I hope that we continue turning to the Creator, and that we will continue supporting and encouraging each other to positively connect and continue bringing the Creator contentment.

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Question: If we perform all the external work, what about the internal work that helps us cling to the degree of a righteous person, and what actions will lead to ascent?

Answer: Clinging to a righteous person can only be achieved by fulfilling his wishes, i.e., studying and coming closer to friends. Everything we learn is the desire of a righteous person. And if, to some extent, it becomes the desire of the student, then the student is considered to be coming close to the righteous person.

Therefore, we can merge with the Creator only by creating closeness between us and the Creator over all the circumstances that He sends us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Why We Need to Extend Hochma”

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