Four questions I received on the breaking of the common soul, the Star of David, respect for sports stadiums, and self acceptance:

Question: Is it possible for the common soul of Adam to break again after the souls unite?

My Answer: No, which is why it’s called “the full correction” (Gmar Tikkun).

Question: Can you explain the Kabbalistic meaning of the Star of David?

My Answer: The two triangles represent the descent of the souls from above downward and their ascent from below upward. The fact that they overlap stands for the Creator’s particular and general governance of Malchut (David).

Question: While browsing through the Kabbalah website, I found a story about how you drove past a sports stadium with Rabash, and he commented that we have to respect this place because it gives a lot of pleasure to many people. How can a place like that be respected if the people there don’t have any desire for the Creator, and their entire desire and pleasure are just primitive egoism?

My Answer: A sports stadium is the Creator’s way of giving pleasure to the masses, and we have to respect everything that comes from the Creator, if it does not hurt one’s neighbor.

Question: Dear Rav, does the notion of self acceptance work with your teaching? It strikes me that it is necessary to renounce one’s self if one is ever to advance. Is that so?

My Answer: Accept yourself the way the Creator made you – deformed, in order to then justify the way He created you and the world. One does this by gradually revealing one’s oppositeness to the Creator, and then correcting it – transforming it to similarity to Him.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Playing Hide ‘n’ Seek with the Creator
Laitman.com Post: The Creator Is the Corrected You
Kabbalah Today Article: “Making Room for the Creator”
Talk: “Revealing the Creator While Living in This World”

Filed under: Q&A - 2 Comments →

In the past, before the destruction of the Temple, children were born into a society that perceived the Upper World and the Creator, and based its life on the spiritual laws. Children perceived the relationship of “love thy neighbor as thyself” as an obvious fact of life. They always saw the adults setting this example and aspiring to attain greater connection with the Creator, whom they clearly perceived. Children understood that they were born into this world and exist in it temporarily only in order to create a connection with Him.

In the Bnei Baruch group, our children (and grandchildren) participate in Kabbalah lessons prepared especially for them. Their relationships are built under the guidance of teachers according to the principle of the Torah – bestowal and love of friends. They completely understand that they, and all people in general, are interconnected. The lessons take place on Sundays and during the whole day on Saturday. On Saturday, boys come with their fathers to the morning lesson and then stay for the whole day. We have a special course for them. Every few months I also give a lesson (a test) to all the children.

It’s a great pleasure to see and hear them, their questions and answers, and to observe these growing people forming a completely new outlook on the world. We don’t realize what it means to receive the true picture of the world during the childhood years, to understand the world’s origin, meaning, and purpose. This picture permeates a child’s consciousness and remains in him as his nature. By watching their daily behavior when they are together or apart, when they are at our center our outside of it, in daycare centers or schools, we can see that they behave differently, and have a special, refined inner quality – spirituality. Their similarity to the Upper Force guarantees them success and safety in our world.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Lessons for Children Every Sunday
Laitman.com Post: Children, Souls, and the Point In the Heart
Laitman.com Post: The Solution – Excerpts from the Writings of the Last Generation by Baal HaSulam
Chapter from the book, A Guide to the Hidden Wisdom of Kabbalah: “Who Can Study Kabbalah?”
Kabbalah for Children – Latest Articles

Filed under: Children - No Comments →

Two questions I received on suffering:

Question: Why do our five senses feel our lack of similarity to spirituality as suffering?

My Answer: It’s because our senses are desires for fulfillment. They were fulfilled in the World of Infinity and were later emptied due to the breaking – the common soul’s separation into a multitude of separate parts or souls. Each soul has recollections (Reshimot) of the past fulfillment, and these Reshimot are now awakening and demanding fulfillment.

What you call suffering is this emptiness you are feeling. When you change your attitude to the sensation of suffering, then you will experience it as fulfillment and happiness. Our attitude or intention can change everything.

The actual state we’re in is static and constant; the only thing that changes is our attitude to it. It determines whether we feel ourselves as being in this world – in the concealment of the Creator, or in His revelation – on the degrees of the five worlds, or in the World of Infinity.

Question: What should I do if my only appeal to the Creator is: “Give me strength not to hate you,” and if despite my work in the group, dissemination, and lessons, the only thing I feel is that my situation at home is getting much worse, my economic circumstances are constantly deteriorating (and I can’t even find a job), and so on. I suddenly started feeling completely estranged from the Creator. Is it normal for Kabbalah to bring material devastation?

My Answer: Rabash told me how difficult it was for him to find work, and how many times he had to change jobs, which included being a shoemaker, a concrete worker, a scribe and a servant.

You must have the same attitude to this as everyone else, but at the same time, regularly (according to a set schedule) continue engaging in that for which you are living in this world – the correction of your soul. Be a little more humble – think that everything comes from the Creator, and the only thing you desire is to feel that this is so.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Perserverance Is the Key to Success
Laitman.com Post: Redemption Will Come At the Hands of the Creator
Laitman.com Post: Practical Advice by Rabash
Chapter from Interview with the Future: “The Spiritual Gene and the Reshimot (Reminiscence)”

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

Questions I received on the prophets, the future of humanity, and the Bnei Baruch community:

Question: I’m wondering whether I understand this correctly: None of the prophets ever spoke about what was happening in their time nor about the forthcoming destruction of the Temple, but only about our times – the spiritual ascent and elimination of egoism that will take place?

My Answer: Yes. See the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, page 99 А.

Question: I am worried: will humanity be able to change and understand what matters most, or will it be held back by the war between Russia and Georgia and the world will drown in madness and chaos?

My Answer: I hope that our dissemination efforts will bring the world to a peaceful correction, without preliminary fighting.

Question: I heard that there was a time when Bnei Baruch was looking for an opportunity for Kabbalists to live together. However, even though your students live near the Bnei Baruch center, they still don’t live together. Why is that? Do you lack finances, an appropriate place, or this is necessary to strengthen the desire?

My Answer: We wanted to create a model of the future society within a close-knit environment, until we discovered that it’s necessary to come out into the greater world and enlighten the whole of humanity, instead of isolating ourselves.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Egoism Is Destroying Itself
Laitman.com Post: Neither Side Is Right In the Georgian War
Kabbalah Today Article: “A Prophet In His Own Country”

Filed under: World - No Comments →

A question I received: I have a question about the sages of the past. I have heard you mention that they used to sleep on the ground and restrict themselves in many ways. I was wondering why this was so, because we learn that only the Light can change us and also that Kabbalah forbids things such as starving ourselves, running away to a monastery, and so on. The way they behaved in the past seems just like Eastern teachings.

My Answer: It’s because the development of egoism (which determines all human development) is a process, and back then egoism was developed only on a small level. To attain correction, it was sufficient to limit oneself physically and study the Torah, as Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot“: “Eat bread with salt, drink little water, sleep on the ground, and labor in the Torah. If so you do, happy you will be; happy in this world and happy in the world to come.” This shows that no one revoked the correction by the Upper Light, because initially it is written: “I created egoism and I created the Torah for its correction, because its Light returns one to Me.”

However, later, during the destruction of the Temple (about 2,000 years ago), there was a sudden jump in the development of egoism, and people fell into egoism (the Temple was destroyed). Kabbalists then performed a special correction in the system of the Upper Worlds that govern us, so that instead of using restrictions, we would also use the Upper Light (Ohr Makif).

Hence, when a person with great egoism fasts (limits himself), then he usually begins to take pride in his actions and moves away from the goal even more. He thinks that by increasing the limitations and the details of observance, he will become more righteous. This is why Kabbalists completely canceled the outer, physical conditions, actions and limitations, and by so doing they moved away from religion even more. This was done because a person can get confused and think that physical actions amount to correction.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Drink Your Milkshake and Study Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: Building the Third Temple
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: Chapter 21 – “Correcting Egoism”

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →

Two questions I received on who can study Kabbalah:

Question: In your blog entry Get a Job you say, “Actually, Kabbalah obligates a person to get a job, get married and only then study Kabbalah.” What does “study Kabbalah” mean? Don’t children study it in many groups? So I’m wondering what “study Kabbalah” means. I think that “study Kabbalah” means the more in depth study, the full study, not the study of human interaction and coexistence with one another that the kids are involved in.

My Answer: Kabbalists write that in our time there are no bans on studying Kabbalah, and it can be studied at any age. The children will grow up, get married, and start working with the knowledge in depth. The world is made in such way that a person must “establish himself according to nature” (get married, work, and so on), and only then can he begin discerning his differences from the Creator and correcting them.

Question: I have never asked myself what I am living for, but I want to study Kabbalah. Can I do it?

My Answer: Rav Kook and other Kabbalists write that there are no restrictions on studying Kabbalah. Even if you don’t have questions, you can study in a group according to the principle, “You’ll work up an appetite once you start eating.” You will acquire the group’s aspiration for the search of the meaning of life. The environment influences the individual, and hence you will also begin to feel your point in the heart and will include your desire into the common ascent!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Do You Have to Be Married to Study Kabbalah?
Kabbalah for Beginners: Chapter 5 – “Who Can Study Kabbalah?”
Kabbalah for Beginners: Chapter 6 – “How To Study Kabbalah”
Kabbalah Today Article: “Avraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (1865-1935)”

Filed under: Education - No Comments →

A question I received: I have been studying Kabbalah for a long time and I really enjoy it. I am also writing a book that examines Kabbalah from different perspectives. I have a million questions for you, but will start with just one: would it be good to restore royal government in Russia?

My Answer: I have been receiving many letters from my students in the entire Caucasus region because of the recent events happening there. Even though I don’t usually get involved in politics or think in corporeal terms, as if something is actually happening here, nevertheless I will talk about this in regular language in order to show how the Upper Forces reflect in our actions.

The Russian people are smart, sensitive, and even special in heart and mind, but they aren’t able to govern themselves (as the Russian saying goes: “The master will come and decide what to do”). They weren’t able to do it over the course of their entire history. The only period when Russia prospered was when it was governed by the tsars – from Peter the Great until the last tsar.

Most of these tsars weren’t Russian, but came from the West, and they directed Russia toward the Western path of development. During that time almost all of Russia’s ministers, as well as Russian culture, were “Western.” And this didn’t impede Russia’s development, but rather facilitated the development of Russian culture, literature, and industry – the foundation of Russia, which was created in the nineteenth century. In essence, Russia was built by Europe, but instead of being suppressed by Western influence, Russian culture, Orthodoxy, and science developed beautifully!

Hence, Russia’s present separation from Europe is suicide for it! Russia should imitate the European parliament and government to the letter, with the help of experienced European specialists, the way it did during Tsarist Russia. It cannot manage on its own, since it lacks the experience of the West, whose history and development go back thousands of years. By showcasing its exclusivity, Russia goes against the Upper Force. Hence, this country will once again develop unsuccessfully.

Incidentally, the Jews in Israel have the opposite problem: they are striving to be like the West, but according to their Upper Goal they must strive to create a spiritual society and become an example for the entire world. This is why the Upper Force is against them.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Neither Side Is Right In the Georgian War
Laitman.com Post: Why Does Everyone Hate Israel?
Laitman.com Post: The Solution – Excerpts from the Writings of the Last Generation by Baal HaSulam

Filed under: Politics - No Comments →

A question I received: I feel drawn to Kabbalah study. I feel great changes. I feel like I am hearing answers that speak to me for the first time in my life. I want to learn, grow and change.

I was unobservant for many years and then returned to observance, mostly to try and make my life make sense and because of guilt. My father is a Rabbi and is a wonderful, pious, accepting man. I thought that I was doing something for my father by returning, and this is how my actions were also perceived by my orthodox family.

I only found Kabbalah because I returned to observance and went into a Chabad house. From there my interests were peaked and I found you online.

I feel conflicted now when I learn from you about the difference between religion and Kabbalah. I understand what you are saying and want to continue to learn, but I feel like if I move toward you, I am being selfish and disloyal to my father. So to move toward Kabbalah might be a selfish act for me considering my circumstance. Is this just part of my work?

My Answer: The difference between religion and Kabbalah is man’s correction. The study of Kabbalah (when it’s done correctly and by the correct source texts) evokes the Upper Light, which corrects one’s egoism according to the rule, “I have created egoism and I have created the Torah for its correction, because the Light that’s in it returns one to the Source.”

We develop to the degree that the broken, egoistic desires are revealed us. When one’s desire for correction becomes revealed, one then begins to sense that our world and everything in it – even faith – are false and empty. However, people who don’t realize this yet are satisfied with faith – whether faith in themselves, the world, or God.

Only you can tell which desires are being revealed in you. At the end of our development all of us will feel the need to unite with the Creator. In our time, people’s desires for Him are beginning to surface. This is why Kabbalah – the method of revealing the Creator, is becoming more and more popular and necessary. Even religions are beginning to “dress” in it and to say that Kabbalah is part of them. This also benefits Kabbalah, because it will accelerate people’s realization that the Creator cannot be attained anywhere besides Kabbalah!

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Light Will Dispel the Darkness
Laitman.com Post: Which Books Should One Read to Learn Kabbalah?
Article: “The Need for Learning Kabbalah”
Kabbalah Today Article: “Interview with Rav Michael Laitman, PhD”

Filed under: Religion - 1 Comment →

A question I received: Is pride a form of egoism? I am reminded of the situation where a man who is very hungry turns down the meal prepared by the giver because of shame. The giver, aware of the shame, asks, “Why are you acting so proud and refusing to eat? Humble yourself and eat!”

My Answer: In this situation the giver is an even bigger egoist and has more pride than the receiver. Therefore, the receiver can accept the food without being ashamed, since he will enable the giver to enjoy his power over the receiver’s unwilling desire.

The situation is different in Kabbalah. When a person desires to escape his egoism, he feels how different he is from the Creator and is ashamed of it. Otherwise the Creator won’t be revealed to him. However, in our world both the giver and the receiver are on the level of our world, inside their compulsory egoism. This is why one of them advises (helps) the other to compensate his shame in some way and be fulfilled.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Greatest Power Comes from Yielding to Others
Laitman.com Post: Egoism and Its Manifestations
Article: “The Dining Table”
Attaining the Worlds Beyond: Chapter 30 – “Fear of the Creator”

Filed under: Egoism - No Comments →

Two questions I received on how to tell whether Kabbalah is the right method:

Question: My question has two parts:

1. Besides Kabbalah there are many methods of revealing the Creator. I can agree that they don’t explain the structure of the Upper Worlds or the rules of governance, but why would a person who is united with the Creator need this anyway? And if the goal of creation is adhesion with Him, then why does Kabbalah deny all other methods of attaining this? Besides, someone studying Kabbalah is not guaranteed to attain the goal of creation – it doesn’t have the “guarantees” that other sciences provide.

2. Physically you look a lot like Osho (or Osho looks like you). Both of you interest me and have my respect. Forgetting the terminology for a minute, you bring Light to the people through the power of logic (physics), and Osho did it through the beauty of poetry (lyrics), but your content is the same. How can I know whether you have really tested your path? Without this verification, Kabbalah is no different than any other religion and requires blind faith.

My Answer: The answer is inside you. A question is the sensation of an empty desire, and its fulfillment is the proof.

Question: In a previous blog entry, you wrote: “The problem with amulets, spells, and mysticism is that they distract us, and we start being late with correcting ourselves. This causes an accumulation of evil that’s expressed as suffering.” But what if it’s too late by the time a person understands this?

My Answer: Nature treats us according to our similarity to it, and to the extent we realize how similar or dissimilar we are to it. It’s the same as how in this world, our judgment of someone who made a wrong action changes depending on whether the action was intentional or not. Suffering that comes from unintended dissimilarity to nature forces us to discover this dissimilarity, and hence it is a correcting signal of an “illness.”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Will We Know That the Revelation of the Upper World Is Not an Illusion?
Laitman.com Post: If There Is a Question, It Will Receive an Answer
Kabbalah Today Article: “To Understand Means to Feel”

Filed under: Spirituality - No Comments →