A comment I received: I’m shocked and moved to tears to find out that we are also potential Nazis. Why did great Kabbalists, who attained Gmar Tikkun (final correction), continue to take part in cruel slaughter and use of animals? How can it be possible that the exalted teaching of Kabbalah ignores cruelty to animals?

It’s obvious that it won’t correct anything in the soul if we were all to become vegetarian. But great Kabbalists corrected everything and did not become lovers of miserable animals. How can this be? Maybe there are 126 levels and the time of the complete Gmar Tikkun has arrived only now, when “love thy neighbor as yourself” will also include animals, plants and the still level of nature? As far as I understand with my simple mind, we must ultimately feel love for ants and bugs as well…

My Response: There are rules for how to act in order to correspond to the general law of nature, called Elokim. Man has been created opposite to this law, and our task is to change ourselves in order to be the same as this law. This is the purpose of our existence in this world. This change in a person, from our level to the Creator’s level, can be attained only by studying Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “Introduction to the Book ‘From the Mouth of a Sage’”: “Even if a person is completely righteous in this world, knows the whole Torah and has fulfilled all the earthly commandments, but did not study Kabbalah, then he must return to this world again in order to study Kabbalah” – because only by studying Kabbalah does he attract the Light of Correction to him, as written in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” item 155.

By correcting himself, a person unwillingly acts according to the Upper Laws. When this happens, how does he relate to the nature around him? He relates to it based on the degree of his equivalence of the Creator. And no matter what he relates to, he does so based on his equivalence to the Creator. But perhaps his actions and behavior won’t seem righteous to you, because you imagine righteousness differently to what it is in the spiritual world.

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Three questions I received about virtual groups and the World Kli

Question: Soon we – the virtual group – will be hosting a Yeshivat Haverim (friends’ gathering) with the purpose of joining the common Kli. What should we aim for as the next stage of unity between our group and the world Kli?

My Answer: As the next stage of unity between your group and the world Kli, you should become maximally included into the common Kli. This way you will receive from the common Kli the realization that you are unable to attain the goal, the Creator, and in addition, the realization of the greatness of the goal that you will receive from them will give you such enormous forces to progress that even when you will be in a descent, you will feel as if you’re on a pillow of forces (Arvut, mutual guarantee). However, all this will happen only if you will really become a part of the group!

Question: How can we realize the principle of Arvut among us in the virtual group?

My Answer: The surest way to do so is to include yourselves into the common Kli and learn from them while working together on disseminating Kabbalah. Through this action, you will definitely be performing an act of bestowal, love for your neighbor, and hence you will evoke Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light), the Light of the Upper Level toward which you aspire – and it will start pulling you up to that level.

Question: How can I think about all the friends at the same time? After all, I’m only capable of concentrating on one thing at a time, but there are millions of friends around the world, and I’ve never even met most of them.

My Answer: You should be thinking about the whole group in general, about all the millions of people, about unity and the common goal, about how many people are striving towards it, and about how the Creator – who is one for everyone – is directing us to Him. Instead of envisioning people and bodies, you should envision the desires to unite together and to unite with the Creator. Imagine that these desires are together regardless of distance and quantity. You will gradually begin feeling this common desire or force more and more vividly! And this will be your Kli. It’s because inside one’s own soul, a person can only receive the initial aspiration toward the Creator, but he receives all the rest of the fulfillment within the souls or desires of his “neighbors,” whom he adds to himself through love, according to the condition “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” It turns out that this is the condition for creating the inner vessel in order to receive the Light of Infinity.

The Virtual Group will be hosting the Yeshivat Haverim this coming Sunday on Kabbalah TV, 7:00pm Israel time [Time Zone Converter].

Related Material:
Lesson: The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) [17-11-07]
Lesson: The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) [17-11-07]
Lesson: The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) [17-11-07] – Transcript

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Three questions I received on the notions of nationality and Israel

Question: If a person is physically born a Jew, does it mean that he will always reincarnate as a Jew?

My Answer: Yes, because his soul came from Babylon and took the path of correction, then ascended to the level of complete personal correction during the times of the Temple, and then fell from that level to the state of all the souls in this world, in order to spend 2,000 years together with them (and even worse off than them), while being in exile from spiritual life. Precisely this soul must ascend and help everyone else do the same – help all the souls attain the full correction.

Question: If the answer is yes, then is it because the nation of Israel was chosen to carry the plan of the Creator, and this would mean that all the other people will also continue being born with the same nationalities that they started with?

My Answer: Yes. However, we don’t know about the other ten tribes, where they are and who they are today. It’s possible that today they are several billion people – those who were on the spiritual level and fell from it during the times of the First Temple. We learn about this fall and its correction from the breaking of two Partzufim, DACHGAT and NHY, in the World of Nekudim, their common fall and then their common correction. See parts 6 and 7 of Talmud Eser Sefirot.

Question: What if a person converts to Judaism and works very hard trying to attain the Creator? Does he also become a part of the nation of Israel (physically and spiritually)?

My Answer: There is no such nation. These people are ancient Babylonians who began correcting themselves back then. The others, who continued developing egoistically, went on to develop from the 70 forces of Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut, and this is why they are called “nations” – and each one has its own form of egoism.

The former are called “Hebrews,” which comes from the word Ever, meaning “across” (across the Machsom), “Jids” – because they await the correction or the Mashiach, and Yehudi (Jew), which comes from the word Yehud, meaning union (with the Creator). This is what set them apart from their brothers, the other Babylonians. So one doesn’t just “convert to Judaism,” the way we see it in our world, but rather spiritual Judaism is when one corrects oneself to the level of the Creator, one attains the Creator through studying Kabbalah. Just like in ancient times, those who are the “nation of Israel” today are those who separated from the other Babylonians by starting to correct their egoism.

You should see the world as that same Babylonian civilization, a part of which temporarily corrected itself, and today everyone must become corrected and become like the Creator. There is no such thing as corporeal Judaism, just like there are no religions, faiths, and so on. All of these things are incorrectly, egoistically understood Kabbalah. Where did people even get such notions, even if they’re mistaken? They came up with them either because their soul hinted at them from within, or from the fall of Kabbalah to the egoistic level. Who were the ancient nations? They were pagans or believers like Romans and Greeks. Everything else came from the spiritual fall, in order to accelerate the development of the Babylonians and bring them to the necessity to become equal to the Creator.

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Kabbalah Today Article: Happy New Year
Chapter 18 from the eBook The Open Book: Introduction to the Zohar, Who Is to Blame?

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Three questions I received about egoism and its consequences

Question: We learn that over the course of human history, people have been striving for pleasures, starting with the basic pleasures (food, shelter, and etc.) and until the most complex pleasures (knowledge and truth). It would be logical to suppose that today humanity should be striving for knowledge. But it seems that instead we’re fighting for the basic things more than anything else. It seems that bodily values are more important for us than values of the mind and knowledge.

My Answer: People without food will strive for nothing but food. And in our technically developed era, when so many possibilities present themselves, we start seeing that wealth, fame, power and knowledge won’t make us happy. This is first felt by the young generation, and it is the reason for people’s feelings of emptiness and depression. Egoism’s growth leads to its own destruction. It presents its inability to achieve happiness, and it forces us to start using it in the only other way possible – for bestowal instead of reception.

Question: Can egoism bring about the soul’s destruction? What happens to people like Hitler and Saddam Hussein? Will the Almighty give them the chance to reach Lishma?

My Answer: They will definitely reach Lishma, complete adhesion with the Creator. They’ll become absolutely righteous, because the leaders of the world are a blind instrument in the hands of Nature, and it’s us who produce their horrible behavior and actions in this world, by being opposite to Nature. Our imbalance with Nature (the law of bestowal) begets the negative correcting forces, such as these horrible rulers/agents you speak of.

Question: In the news in all languages, including English, French, and German, we keep hearing about a rise of instances of mothers killing, eating, and brutally treating their children. This looks absolutely unnatural. How are we to understand this phenomenon?

My Answer: We should understand this phenomenon as a consequence of egoism, which has reached the final phase of its growth. The prophets wrote that mothers will kill and eat their children, if we don’t correct our egoism before it grows. Read the prophets!

Related Material:
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A question I received: Can a person who gave everything he had to dissemination, inner work, the group, and love of friends, who participated in congresses and worked with all his strength and desire, suddenly leave this path and go to another Rav? How can someone be so passionate about this and sacrifice himself for the goal, and at the same time look for another teacher?

My Answer: Everything is possible. I’ve seen all kinds of things. Every person has his own path and others shouldn’t interfere with it, including myself. We should help and give to people, but after that everything depends only on the person himself. One’s spiritual development is one’s own choice; there is no coercion when it comes to one’s spiritual path. This is the only approach that will prove to be genuine and will attract everyone, and only this attitude to one another conveys true care and love, and corresponds to the law of Nature.

The goal of creation is for every person to attain complete equivalence with the Creator through free choice. Therefore, we can only bring the method to the surface, offer people the group and our forces, but the choice is up to the person! If you ask people who’ve been in the group and studying with me for fifteen to twenty years already, they’ll tell you that I never ask questions even when someone leaves the group or disappears all of a sudden. A person’s soul should teach him how to correct it.

Related Material:
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Chapter 6 from the Book The Kabbalah Experience: Soul, Body and Reincarnation

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Two questions and answers on the issue of questions and answers

Question: What’s the point of listening to someone else ask you a question? And in general, what’s the point of questions?

My Answer: It is written that “a shy person cannot study.” One has to ask questions, but at the same time one should heed the answers and delve deeper into them, until they become absolutely clear, that is, until they enter you. When you listen to your friend, you unite with him in his desire for the goal, and this is important for uniting within the group. I mean, your desire on its own is never enough to attain the goal, for the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) to evoke a new intention “for the sake of another” in your desire. It was only for the sake of such unity with others that the worlds appeared, that the soul of Adam was created and then broken, and that this world was created so low. This was all done in order to create for the person a place for free will. Therefore, the only thing we do is realize our free will in our attempt to absorb the desires and goal of our friends in the entire world group.

In such a way, humanity will have to solve its common crisis, i.e. the revelation of mutual hatred and separation. People will discover that this mutual hatred and separation is causing a life threatening situation, to the point of the destruction of their lives. Even though their life is empty and worthless, they treat it as being very valuable since it is the only life they have, and as such, people will start listening to questions – to the desires of others – until everyone will unite in one question (as stated in item 2 of the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot“): “What is the meaning of our lives?” They will then come to Kabbalah.

Question: You often say that spirituality is beyond time, motion and space. What do you mean?

My Answer: You need to find the answer in Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 1 “Histaklut Pnimit (Inner Reflection).” You can’t get around it – you have to study. Those who are looking for an easy way out by asking questions don’t understand that only by studying Baal HaSulam’s materials (in any language) can they evoke the Upper Light of correction. Questions and answers are only intended to introduce beginners to the path. At the very least, you should go through all the posts on this blog. Perhaps, for now, this form of studying is most appropriate for you.

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A notice I received: The Disclosure Project is a nonprofit research project working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence, and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems. We have over 450 government, military, and intelligence community witnesses testifying to their direct, personal, first hand experience with UFOs, ETs, ET technology, and the cover-up that keeps this information secret.

My Comment: This is all very appealing and alluring because of its secrecy, but in our times we have more practical problems to think about. Leave these UFOs and things for the romantic youth, who don’t even exist anymore. Hmmm… so the only ones you have left are the aged romantics.

Kabbalah is the method of entering the higher dimension, where we all need to relocate. The ship that can get us there is our intention to go “away from ourselves.” The time allotted for us to relocate to the higher dimension is quickly decreasing. So instead of your project, let’s start putting my project into action!

Your project is only talking about disclosing a conspiracy that is concealing something unearthly, but which is similar to us in some way. Moreover, who knows what problems such a disclosure would bring us, and more generally speaking, whether such a revelation actually holds to it anything more than satisfying our curiosity. However, I’m offering something that will fly us all, together, away from this world! Moreover, we have all the technology we need, it’s just waiting for us to use it. So buckle up and get ready to take off!

Related Material:
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A question I received: What would you say to a person who knows the answer to the question “Why do I live?”

My Answer: The question “Why do I live?” always and constantly leads a person from action to thought, and from thought to the next action. In general, a person always lives for something, he always wants something in the next moment.

For most people, the question about the meaning of life exists only within the span of our world. As such, most people work to achieve all sorts of goals in our world, goals such as food, sex, family, wealth, power, honor, fame, and knowledge. Most people find meaning to their lives in such goals.

However, after the person has achieved all that, and within each and every person, the question about the meaning of life common to all needs to arise, rather than how to fulfill ourselves during the seventy years of the body’s existence. This question also has many answers from many different “spiritual” methods and religions, but these will all gradually become irrelevant because of their inadequacy. Kabbalah is all that will remain, and the answer it provides is the following: “The meaning of life is to attain our root, the source from where we came – to attain the Creator. Our greatest aspiration – our innermost part that becomes revealed after everything else – is for the Creator, because that is where we came from.” Read Baal HaSulam’s definition in “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.”

Therefore, to answer your question, if there’s a person who knows the answer to the question “Why do I live?” I would ask him “Did you discover it by attaining the Creator, by becoming like Him?”

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Two questions I received on directions other than Kabbalah

Question: Dear Rav Laitman, I’m simply in shock. I listen to your lectures and I’d really like to know: What right do you have to deny a person’s personal understanding of G-d, on the one hand, and on the other hand, what right do you have to assert that no other path is correct!? It’s clearly written that “A person studies where his heart leads him” – you are not the only one who teaches Kabbalah, so what are you trying to do – is this your way of ruling over the world!? My mother was righteous, and she always devoted herself to society, but she didn’t spend a day of her life studying Kabbalah. So what’s all this wisdom worth if, in the end, there are pure people without it? And if it’s not intended to make this world better, then is there really anything good about it!?

My Answer: I have the right to assert my opinion, and you have the right to do disagree with it. I have no complaints against you. Kabbalah has its assertions, and you have yours. As long as you haven’t discovered what Kabbalah is talking about, then what it asserts is nonexistent for you, and thus, you are absolutely correct to reject its assertions. However, when the necessity to reveal what Kabbalah is talking about comes to you, and when you’ll discover what it talks about, then you’ll change your opinion. There’s a time for everything.

Question: I can’t attain anything without a teacher, but where can I get him if I live in Baltimore? And why can’t I get answers, hints, and explanations from Blavatsky, Levi, Yung, Plato and Pythagoras?

My Answer: Go ahead and get answers from them, if you’re able to be satisfied by their teachings. A person should study wherever his heart feels drawn, and he should study that which fulfills his heart.

Related Material:
Chapter 6 from the Book The Kabbalah Experience: Soul
Lesson: Freedom of Will

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A question I received: In the book Shaarey Kedusha, section Shaar Dalet, Rav Chaim Vital explains how to meditate, once a person is ready for it in terms of his level of Torah study, observance of the commandments, and fear of the heavens. One enters a room where he can be alone, covers himself with a Tallit and sits with eyes closed. Then he sees how he leaves his body behind and ascends to the heavens. One who attains such a state takes a sentence or excerpt from the Mishnah and repeats it over and over again. What do you think about this?

My Answer: Not a word of it is speaking about our world. Rather, it is all written in the language of branches and points to the forces of the Upper World. Kabbalists only write their books in this way.

“…One enters a room (Heichal Malchut) where he can be alone (away from all the Klipot or disturbances), covers himself with a Tallit (see the level of Tallit in Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut, with Ohr Makif) and sits with eyes closed (he leaves his previous level). He then sees how he leaves his body (his AHP) behind and ascends to the heavens (to the AHP of the Elyon). One who attains this state takes a sentence or excerpt from the Mishnah and repeats it over and over again (and in this way ascends from one level to the next, over and over again).”

Related Material:
Kabbalah Blog Post: Kabbalistic Meditation – There Is No Such Term
Kabbalah Blog Post: Kabbalah – the Phenomenon, Phallacies and Facts

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