Dispelling Myths About Kabbalah, Part 5

Commandments And Traditions

Question: Does Kabbalah obligate one to follow the Jewish rituals?

Answer: When one studies the wisdom of Kabbalah, even being the most secular person who has never followed any traditions, he begins to feel that all of these rituals are given with the purpose of reminding about the connection with the upper force. Therefore, some people begin to follow these traditions, although there is no obligation.

Question: For example, what is the meaning of blessings for bread and for wine in the beginning of the first Shabbat meal?

Answer: It is impossible to explain these actions without the wisdom of Kabbalah. Only Kabbalah explains what the seventh day of the week, Shabbat, means. It corresponds to the seventh millennium, that is, the end of correction.

We hope that we will come to a state when the entire world will be corrected and will continue its existence in the absolute general love for the other in greater degree than for himself. Then, the upper force will be revealed between us in the corrected connection and will dwell between everyone.

Without the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is impossible to understand what the Torah is talking about.

Question: Why do we add salt to the bread during the blessing at the beginning of the Shabbat meal?

Answer: It is very simple to understand for someone who studies Kabbalah. However, it is impossible to explain it without using the Kabbalistic terms. Bread symbolizes the Light of Mercy, Hassadim, Bina, whereas salt is Malchut. This way, a connection appears between Bina and Malchut, as it is written, “You shall offer salt on all your sacrifices,” as a sign of the union.

One must study this. It is impossible to explain it in a few words. If you want to understand the inner meaning of any tradition, it is possible only through the wisdom of Kabbalah. All traditions, laws, and commandments in Judaism come from Kabbalah and exist only because of this wisdom. It explains their true meaning and fills them with the inner sense.
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From the Radio Program on 103FM, 2/28/16

The Munich Tragedy, Palestinian Style

Question: The Council of Jewish Organizations in France expressed indignation that the Cannes Film Festival has planned the screening of an Arab film, Munich: The Palestinian Story. In the film, the terrorists who kidnapped and murdered the Israeli athletes are called freedom fighters, and all responsibility for the crime is thrown upon the German police. How is such a distortion of clear facts possible?

Answer: Today the entire modern world has become like this. If everyone says, “The Jews drink blood” and accuse them with charges that are devoid of logic, so why would the Cannes Film Festival be different? In our time, culture has become a means of political expression.

Comment: And people easily believe it.

Answer: Certainly! So they exploit culture. The controlling authorities have taken the so-called independent communications media into their hands, and now they are also taking the control of culture in their hands. They are also giving their attention to the areas of life in which it is still possible to operate on a person and manipulate him.

Comment: In spite of all this, the Jewish Agency, which is an “agency” of our external publicity, is investing great efforts in propaganda.

Answer: These organizations cannot do anything, they don’t have the power. The only thing we can do is conduct an audit of who we are. Are we to blame for what is happening? It is impossible for us to constantly justify ourselves and blame the nations of the world for being the “bad guys” and say we are the “good guys.”

We must dig deeper to understand who the Jews what Israel, how we relate to the implementation of the program in all of nature and the world. After all, we really manage this, without knowing it, and our bad attitude towards each other is bad for all the people who accuse us that we are the source of all evil. Therefore, we ourselves are building with their own hands is in itself, and no one is to blame.

And the peoples of the world have no way of confronting what we are doing in the world.

It is necessary to dig deeper to understand who the Jews are, what Israel is, and how we are connected to the implementation of the program of the development of all ofnature and the world. After all, we really do manage this program without knowing it, and our bad attitude toward one another is bad for all the people who accuse us of being the source of all evil. Therefore with our very own hands we are building such an attitude toward us and no one else is to blame. The peoples of the world have no opportunity to confront what we are doing in the world.

Question: Are we capable of changing this attitude?

Answer: We can change this attitude if we listen to what the wisdom of Kabbalah says, otherwise there is no way.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/17/16

Man And Woman – Such Different Worlds, Part 2

Spiritual Nest

Question: Presently, men and women receive pleasure from the fact that they dominate over one another. How is it possible to enjoy our equality and mutual completion?

Answer: Only completing each other brings us real sexual pleasure. When each of us connects with a partner above their animal sexual feeling, in a corrected spiritual coupling, we turn into a spiritual man and woman who complete each other in order to reveal the upper force, and an eternal, heavenly life between them.

This force of life is revealed between these two to the extent that they are able to make a correction called “A man and a woman and the divinity (Schechina) between them.” In this way we create the upper world between us, and then we exist in it, and it exists in us.

Question: What does a woman have to do in order to feel equal to a man and enable their mutual completion?

Answer: A woman must help a man and a man must help a woman to really feel equal with respect to correction and connection to the upper force. We can never be equal in any other sense.

Only through revelation of the Creator between us, when all desires of a man and woman complete each other, an eternal and complete state is created that is called the “Garden of Eden.”

To do this, one needs to think about the other and help the other to reach a correct spiritual conduct. A man must help a woman in this, and a woman must help a man. And in this, a woman has a much higher mission than a man. After all, she needs to show him that she expects from him exactly this, so that revelation of the highest spiritual level will become more important to him than dominating a woman in any way: spiritually, financially, or sexually.

A woman wants to adhere to a spiritual man. And a man has to receive the proper education so that the revelation of the spiritual state will be the most important goal for him. And because he is unable to reach this goal without a woman, he requires her, her inner strength and support.

He needs a woman that will support him and will be building a spiritual nest together with him, not for an animal coupling, but for a spiritual one. Spiritual merging between man and woman is called coupling where each invests their force of bestowal above the force of love for their unity.

This is not power of one over the other and not an acquisition, but a special completion of each other above their personal egoism and their joint egoism. Joint egoism is the physical coupling where they materially complete each other and become like one body. However this is only a bodily connection.

They want to unite spiritually. When a man and a woman reach such completion, they really come to the perfect life.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/31/16

Crossing Of The Red Sea (Yam Suf), Part 1

Question: In the story of the Israelites exiting Egypt, one of the most significant and biggest events is the crossing of the Red Sea. This event occurs when the Israelites, after receiving Pharaoh’s permission, leave Egypt in haste and a week later reach the Red Sea.

Pharaoh, after a few days, regrets his decision to release the Jews and sends his entire army with chariots and horses to chase them. The situation seemed hopeless to the Jews, they faced the sea and were surrounded on three sides.

At this point, the Creator told Moses to raise his staff—and the sea parted, divided into two halves. As soon as the Israelites crossed in the middle and reached the opposite shore, the sea returned to its usual state, and the Egyptians pursuing them drowned. What does this story about crossing the Red Sea symbolize?

Answer: I think the Torah was given to man to discover his qualities, tendencies, desires, intentions, and thoughts, to realize that a man is a small world that has everything in it: Egypt, the people of Israel, Mount Sinai, the Sinai desert, and the Red Sea. Everything that exists in the world is inside man.

Moreover, by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah correctly we reveal that there is no world outside of man. It seems to me that I am in a room called a studio and there are other people and various subjects in it apart from me. But all this is in me, inside of me. My qualities draw this picture on my internal screen. However this picture is sensory.

Let’s fantasize a little. Let us say that we can live another 100-200 years. Who thought about television 100 years ago? No one! Suddenly the first little black-and-white television appeared, then a bigger one, and then a color one with a few channels.

Let’s assume that in 100 years we will produce a television that will create the complete illusion of a movie, as if you are there, inside, among the people, and even experience different scents. You look at this game and it even involves you, and all these images, created by, let’s assume, laser beams in the air, interact with you.

You project your thoughts and desires on them, and they on you, and all of it is a special program in which you participate and play together with artificial images. And suddenly you discover that you are exactly the same, because what makes you different from them? And they, apparently, also look at each other and at you the same way. This is the people.

Ultimately, we are some kind of a program that materializes in such a form and nothing more. So what is the difference between internal and external? There is none. We are all a kind of holographic, three-dimensional picture that can also be more dimensional. And this is how we live.

Actually, this is what the Torah explains to us. So far it is hard for us to imagine this, but when we really approach spiritual perception this is exactly what is gradually revealed to us. We develop an ability to understand and feel the truth, to live in it, and to be in a constant interaction with it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah allows us to do it; therefore it is called the wisdom of reception (Kabbalah means reception in Hebrew), the wisdom of perception. This is why the Torah tells us about all the situations in such a form, meaning it is talking about a person who understands that he is inside a play or a game where the upper thought, the upper program, creates all these images and he exists together with them in this life.

Then a question arises: How does he relate to this great mind and the great desire that controls this theatre? Either he exists in it understanding this fact and searches for the most correct way to play his role, or he lives as he pleases, every moment following his senses and selecting what is best for himself.

The person that lives within himself is seemingly disconnected from others; he doesn’t care about these images, the process that everyone undergoes, and this general intention, the so-called purpose of creation. He lives every minute just for his own benefit, according to his shallow inner feeling. He is allowed to realize his internal personal program.

But it is made clear to him that there is a common program and he can play together with others according to this program. And then he moves together with the global upper thought and desire, called the thought of creation. Between these two things, a person can be in connection with the thought of creation to different extents or in connection with his “animal body,” as long as he is happy.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/21/16

The Use Of Physical Punishment With Children

Comment: Recently results were published of a 50 year study of children and parents. The research includes stories from 160,000 children. It became clear that children who were beaten by their parents had mental health problems. They became aggressors and their mental abilities were well below average. The article emphasizes that today in our world, 80% of parents in one way or another discipline their children with corporal punishment.

Answer: First and foremost it is necessary to educate the parents, since the best method is to provide an example! Any proper upbringing is done only through the example of the older relative to the younger. The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about this.

The study examines the question of parents and children, but in fact, the most important thing is to educate the parents. And this must begin from birth.

Parents must know that they have to be an example for their child and must create such an atmosphere for him that will shape him. They need to study human nature, the psychology of boys, girls, men and women, the psychology of the family and society. It is a huge system of knowledge that many of us are lacking!

Parenting is an entire science. Who among us has received knowledge, education, and information about women? No one. We look at her as an object only for fulfilling our pleasures. And this is terrible!

For many years, even while studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, I felt how many completely natural wild, ancient, and animal impulses and attitudes were within me in toward others, which wouldn’t have existed if the environment around me had been created  by a Kabbalistic upbringing. So every parent should receive an appropriate education, and then a person will be created that doesn’t operate only according to animal instincts.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/28/16

Great Or Defective?

Question: Does being equivalent in form with the Creator make a person great in the eyes of the friends or in the eyes of the Creator? If we have to attain it in our physical body, it is hard for a person to avoid the feeling of superiority since it is our nature.

Answer: No, when we begin to resemble the Creator, to reach an equivalence of form with Him, our desire to be superior to anyone, in the eyes of our friends or in the eyes of humanity, disappears. On the contrary, the attribute of love,bestowal, and modesty appears in us and I would even say humility, because we begin to attain to what degree we are ugly and defective before we resemble the Creator. In other words, we have nothing to be proud of at all. Man is the most corrupt creature in the world. If we look at humanity and at what we do the world we will see that there is nothing t o be proud of.

When we gradually resemble the Creator, a person totally loses the desire to take pride in anything, especially if he begins not only to attain who he is with regard to the Creator, but also to feel that he is the lowliest of all mankind, although in fact he is more sublime than others in his attributes. The point is that humanity doesn’t feel that it is corrupt or that it needs corrections while a Kabbalist feels that. So with regard to all the people in our world, he feels that he is defective.

Question: If acquiring the Creator’s attributes makes one feel defective, why should we yearn for that?

Answer: A person truly advances toward the goal according to his feeling of being defective, but at the same time, he receives sublime attributes since every person who studies a certain science and understands that he doesn’t know something acquires this knowledge by the feeling of not knowing.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/13/16

Your First Steps

When the point in the heart is turned on in a person it draws him so strongly to the Creator that he is ready to do anything in order to satisfy this desire. This stems from the fact that it is the uppermost desire of a person.

So it is with burning eyes, a person finds his way to the study ofKabbalah and is ready to accept any conditions. But in the beginning he doesn’t understand or hear anything of what is being taught, but is as within a cocoon, inside himself.

He comes to study regularly and participates in all the events because he wants to be accepted as a member and be part of the group of those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah. After a couple of months he gets a feeling of a descent and sinks into darkness, indifference, weakness; the Light diminishes and he doesn’t understand what is happening to him.

This is a sign that the first layer has been revealed in him, the lightest layer of his spiritual egoism, besides his everyday earthly egoism in which he was before just like all the other people. This means that a new spiritual layer of the ego is being revealed under the layer of his earthly ego. Although a person doesn’t understand what is happening to him and doesn’t feel any change, this state is different from all the other states he has been through in his life, a foggy state, which he doesn’t understand.

The revelation of the new layer of egoism occurred as a result of attending Kabbalah lessons in a group, of his participation in group events; as a result of his participating in a Kabbalistic group, he now receives his first portion of the Light that Reforms. The Light reforms a person and brings him back to the Creator, to the Light, to the attribute of love and bestowal to the friends, and gradually to all of humanity through advanced mutual actions.

It is written, “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.” First it reveals a new layer of the ego in a person, the evil inclination, and then the right response for it is expected from a person. Generally speaking a correct response means a prayer, a person’s request for help from the Creator to ascend above his egoism so that despite the disturbances he will consider that the egoism was sent to him and is revealed in him by the Creator Himself. The Creator gives him a chance to rise above the obstacles so that he can constantly be aware of the Creator’s uniqueness, and His absolute good leadership, (that there is none else besides Him and that He is good that does good).

The problem of a beginner is that he cannot control himself when he discovers the new desire in him, the change in the size of the desire. It seems to him that the world collapses, that the method is not realistic, etc. He has many complaints not to himself and not even to the Creator but to the teachers and the place of study.

At this point many usually leave the study with a negative attitude. We don’t see such massive numbers of people who leave in any other method because nowhere do people study how to exit their egoism. On the other hand, in a group of students like in Bnei Baruch we are taught how to “sacrifice” our egoism, our nature, and instead how to acquire the attribute of altruism, the Creator’s nature.

Therefore, it is said with regard to the wisdom of Kabbalah that “a thousand enter the study and only one comes out to be an instructor (to the Light).” But the 999 students who don’t attain the Light are also in contact with it and their reward is very high. (See the writings of Baal HaSulam). Those who leave the method and especially those who speak against it because they cannot acquire it because they are too lazy, keep themselves even further away from the correction of their soul.
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How Do We Turn To The Creator?

Question: I value what is written in the sources and in the prayer book because you said they were written by Kabbalists, members of the Great Knesset, but I imagine what is said there in the most corporeal way. How should I turn to the Creator? Should I pray to Him if I don’t feel Him?

Answer: We don’t feel the Creator, so having no choice, we imagine Him in different corporeal images. If we want to attain Him or at least to imagine who we turn to correctly so that we can really turn to Him, we have to understand who He is, which means to gradually attain His attributes.

A man’s need to reveal the Creator stems from this world, from which we gradually begin to depict Him correctly to the extent that we acquire the attribute of bestowal, which means to the extent that we begin to resemble the Creator according to the rule “from the love of the created begins to the love of the Creator.”

If we do it any other way, we will not turn to the Creator but to His oppositeness, to our ego, to Pharaoh. When we turn to him we ask for corporeal fillings, not to acquire the attribute of love and bestowal. This is the reason that Baal HaSulam says that first we have to imagine the Creator and then pray to Him.

Only if our efforts are aimed to the connection with friends, which spur and summon the influence of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), the Light of the Torah that reforms, to the source, to the attribute of love and bestowal, is the image of the Creator revealed in a person. It is revealed as the only upper force similar to the way the image of the parents is formed in a small child as something that is whole, safe, protecting, the source of himself and of the whole world.

A person who begins to study the wisdom of Kabbalah draws away from the religious perspective of the Creator if this is how he was brought up, and seems to leave the religious path. After the correction of the first level of the ego, by correcting himself in agroup of friends who try to get closer to each other, by fulfilling the Kabbalists’ instructions in the connection between the friends in the group, by drawing the Light that Reforms, the Surrounding Light(Ohr Makif), by the attempts to get closer to the friends; he gets closer to fulfilling the main rule in the Torah, “love thy friend as thyself.” It is only under the influence of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif)  that saves and corrects a person that a student begins to feel the presence of the Creator in the world. Thus our forefathers advanced in their attainment of the Creator to the extent that they resembled Him.

Then came the period of the sons when the feeling of the Creator through uniting in the group became more real. An urge to turn to Him appears and is felt as the source of life and all of a person’s attributes and actions. A person becomes totally focused on the connection with the Creator because he feels that the Creator manages all his thoughts, desires and actions.

So the only thing left for a person to do is to ask the Creator for the ability to make the right choice in his thoughts desires and actions because it is as if he wants to overtake the Creator in his yearning to resemble Him. The period of the correction of a person’s nature is called the period of the sons and it is said “my sons have overtaken me,” which means that the sons overtake the Creator in their yearning to resemble Him.
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