A Kabbalist Is Not An Ordinary Scientist

Question: Who is a Kabbalist? What does he see that we don’t see? What does he feel that we don’t feel? Does he have supernatural powers? How does a person become a Kabbalist? Will you reveal to us all the secrets of the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: A Kabbalist is a scientist, only not an ordinary scientist. He explores the world and wants to reach the root of everything that is happening, to discover and know why everything is arranged in such a form, from where this appears and where everything is going.

This is a person who has an inner need to reach the world in which he lives and discover what this world expects of him. This is a person who is born with a question that burns within him and doesn’t let him rest: What were we given this life for? What is its meaning? Why was I born? Today this question bothers many people, but in the past it was the inheritance of selected people.

The first Kabbalist was Adam HaRishon (The First Man), a person who lived 5,775 years ago. Adam discovered the secret of life and wrote a book about this. Certainly people lived long before him, but Adam is considered the first man because he discovered the inner essence of nature and the hidden power that stands behind all the external and individual forces that appear before us.

We live in a reality in which part of it is clearly revealed, whereas the other part is hidden. Each time we disclose some other part of reality, and so we advance. But there is a reality that always remains hidden from our discernment if we don’t change ourselves.

The hidden reality is imperceptible to our senses; we are limited by the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, but reality is much more extensive than them. We know nothing about anything that doesn’t enter into the range of our senses.

We are only ready to expand their range a bit: increasing vision through microscopes and telescopes, hearing through radar and range finders; we invent all kinds of sensory instruments. But in principle, these are only small additions to our natural senses so that the eyes will see a greater distance and the ears will hear better.

In principle, we cannot even guess what senses we still lack. The world is much more rich and diverse, but we don’t know a thing about it. There are other, higher dimensions, more expansive than the usual mundane reality, and they could be revealed to us, but we are not ready to discover them.

The development of science brings a person to a line; he feels that there must be something else beyond the limits of our world. But where is its door, the way through which it would be possible to go out of our nature and enter into whatever dimensions we are unaware and don’t feel now?

Suppose that all people were blind, then we would get along in this world without sight, even without suspecting that we are missing something. In the same manner, we don’t suspect that we are missing a very important sense, the feeling of the general Higher Power that organizes everything and manages everything.

We don’t feel this power and our connection with it; it is concealed from us as if it didn’t exist at all. But in fact, we simply lack the development that will make it possible for us to discover and attain it.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/2/15

Eternity And Wholeness Instead Of The Dominance Of Money

Question: What does it mean to look at the economy and the system of human relationships correctly to prevent the future crisis?

Answer: In the 60s of the previous century, the world began to transform into an integral, circular, and closed system. But this was not yet clearly felt.

It is possible to claim that in the past century the world experienced a series of crises: “The Great Depression” in the United States, the crisis of Socialism in Russia, the crisis in Japan after great prosperity, and so forth. All of this became the origin of problems, but in the meantime doesn’t indicate a need for an absolutely different approach towards us and towards society.

We tried to find other ways out of the crisis. And the main thing is that people in whose hands wealth, power, and control are concentrated, until today, have not wanted to let go of all this because the coming relationship to the world is circular, integral. So those who have money, power, and an army will not manage the world.

This will be an absolutely different society. There are none who are higher, lower, and in the middle there; there is no control through force, the power of money, and the military. We call this society communist, but it should not be confused with the egoistic communistic experiments that were made in Russia, in Kibbutzim in Israel, and so forth.

The transition to this society, in principle, takes from those who dominate through all the power of money and the military. So it is necessary for some event to happen that is very difficult to predict.

When these people become convinced that the discovery of the next level of existence will transform them into eternal, perfect creatures that are not influenced by any defect, disease, and death, then this discovery can influence them so that they will let go of their desire for the imaginary dominance that attracts them like a child’s game.

Moreover, this will make it possible for the present rulers of the world to take a new role upon themselves: gently distributing the army and wealth, to move gradually to an absolutely different relationship to society in which each one will receive all that is required and necessary for him on a physical level.

And people will direct their time, power, and energy only so that there will be the right mutual connection between them because specifically with that we will begin to attain our eternal existence on a higher and higher level.

This can happen either through natural disasters and very difficult wars, or in a good way if the great ones in the world will understand that in exchange for all the happiness and physical control, they will acquire control over their nature, over death. I think that what will influence them in a positive way is the possibility of transforming physical, temporal, and insignificant control into eternal and perfect control.

I want to believe that humanity will reach this smoothly.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 8/12/15

A Love That Never Dies

Question: Are you saying that love between a married couple is not enough and that they need to reach love between the Creator and the creature?

Answer: We don’t find any love in married couples nowadays. Our family relationships are in a state of the mournful day of the ninth ofAv.

The destruction is felt in our entire lives, the relationships between parents and children, the boss and the workers, and between cabinet members as well. There is no understanding anywhere.

Question: There are many types of love, love for children, parents, close relatives, and so forth, but why is there a special romance in the love between a man and a woman?

Answer: Love is when I fulfill the desire of another person before my own desire. I need to know and feel what the other wants so that his desire becomes more important than my own.

This is the most general definition of love, but it fits all cases. The bond of marriage is just more encompassing than others since this connection includes mutual obligations, the experience of living together, knowing the partner, children in common, a common home and money, and a feeling of security and a guarantee of support in difficult times. A marriage is unification in this world with all the consequences that follow.

However, in the spiritual world, you are able to know your partner in a new way every moment. It is written that Malchut becomes a virgin again every day, and hence, a new relationship begins as if you weren’t familiar with her.

It seems that we lack this aspect in our regular life and family. If a married couple were on the spiritual level, they could renew their corporeal relationship every day.

Once, three and a half thousand years ago, the nation of Israel lived this way. Let’s hope that soon we will return to that and learn to reveal new qualities in each other every day. Then, it will be correct, true love, which is renewed at every moment.

Meanwhile, today, in order to enliven our relationship even slightly and feel a connection, we are forced to fight. Upon making up after a fight, the flavor of love, which was dulled, is renewed.

However, it is impossible to get used to spiritual love. It changes all the time. New conditions are revealed constantly, and thus the love is rejuvenated all the time.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/30/15

Concealed Suffering = Revealed Pleasure

Question: Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”: “And we have already learned that the matter of the disclosure of the face will inevitably turn every grief and sadness that came during the concealment of the face into wondrous pleasures…”

How is grief transformed into pleasure if it happened in the past? Maybe the same movie is played for us again?

Answer: Suppose that you have an upset stomach and you cannot eat anything because you have terrible pains from the food. In front of you is wonderful and exquisite food, but you get sick just from the sight of it.

After your stomach is healed, you can enjoy all the delicacies. Before you corrected your problem, it was bad for you when you looked at the delights, and now you enjoy looking at it.

It follows that the problem was not in the filling, but in yourself, in your Kelim. The filling didn’t cause you any harm. The presence of the filling upset you, but, in itself, it wasn’t bad. Rather, the evil was found in your illness.
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/14

About The Blows Of The Past And Of The Future

Question: Several researchers of modern anti-Semitism refer to the fact that the Torah calls the nation of Israel the chosen and the holy nation, which is hard to swallow for those looking for a correction in equality…

Answer: It is not that the Torah tells us such things; it is the more the Israeli nation doesn’t display them and doesn’t proclaim them as its foundation. Many don’t know about this, but it didn’t decrease the intensity of their feelings.

We are actually dealing with the force found in nature, in our human desires. Even people who feel nothing towards the nation of Israel and who don’t know anything about its roots, still feel this hatred. It stems from their very nature, and there is nothing we can do about it. The vessels of the desire to receive naturally hate bestowal and true connection the Torah speaks about.

We don’t feel hatred towards this but resistance. Bestowal still belongs to us and not to anyone else. Those who don’t feel part of it hate it to such an extent that they are actually ready to destroy, kill, and eliminate it.

Nothing is more natural than this. This is actually the reason that Esau wanted to kill Jacob, but couldn’t do it because the subconscious image of Esau in a person is the thought that without Jacob he will not survive that stops him. We see in the Torah that it is impossible to manage in the world without a source of bestowal. But the desire to destroy or to subdue and to bend the attribute of bestowal still burns in a person, especially now.

We may wonder how this is possible in the 21^st century. People don’t understand that a new era is beginning, which requires the nation of Israel to actually act. Previously this was so. Despite the hatred of the other nations, it wasn’t really obliged to fulfill the correction, but still underwent terrible sufferings.

Only recently, we haven’t suffered for a short time because the Creator enabled us to return to the land of Israel and determine that we are here in order to start the correction. But the initial period of our return to this land has ended. Baal HaSulam tells us about it in the “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar,” saying that we were given the chance and now if the nation of Israel doesn’t actually fulfill its correction, all the sufferings we have underwent will seem like nothing compared to the new sufferings that will come.

It is because we have never been in a state in which we had to fulfill the correction after the exile of the nation of Israel, and so the account with this nation will be very hard. All the blows we received before were only in order to keep us from connecting with the nations of the world so that we would not forget. They helped us remain separate and to guard ourselves so that we would be able to return to the correction that will come later. But those were also terrible blows.

Now, however, they will come from a totally different source. We have to understand that it is our duty to bring the message of the correction to the world. After all,  ultimately we who are to blame. Others still don’t know about this, while we do know, and so we will be demanded to fulfill it. If we fall asleep, all the blows of the world will be on our conscience.
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From the 3d part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Connected Desires Are Like Welded Pipes

Question: What does one need in order to be as closely in an equivalence of form with the teacher as possible?

Answer: Everyone feels this according to the sublteties of his soul. But if we decide to perform some general action, everyone has to participate in them, otherwise a person is neither with the group nor with me and it is as if he is thrown off the boat into the stormy sea, although he may not feel it.

Besides, if I work with someone on a certain project, no matter what one does: one can take care of the electricity, another can prepare excerpts from articles, etc., and there are others who have to see what is required of them. They come to me to clarify what I want exactly and why I think so, an expert may explain to me that it should be done in a different way and then I may change my mind.

But the student has to care that his opinion and my opinion should be one! If he doesn’t agree with me, let him come and convince me. This often happens, I am not so stubborn that I don’t listen to reason. It’s usually about corporeal matters, includingdissemination because there can be different local conditions I am not aware of. But the principle is “make your desire his desire,” which means that there should be an agreement between the student and his teacher and the fulfillment of the desire.

Question: How should I know that I have made my desire his desire? Not everyone can come and ask!

Answer: If it is a personal project you may come and ask. If it is a general project in dissemination, I count on the people in charge of this project. I hope that they understand the responsibility they have to guide everyone according to what has been decided. It is as if we all reach one desire, one intention, one direction, and then we go out and disseminate. There you have to make sure that things don’t divert in other directions, and if this suddenly happens you should consult me.

If we don’t hold on to the accurate direction, it is like two connected pipes where one suddenly shifts and then nothing can flow through them. I have to make my desire his desire for the Light to flow.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson “Teacher”

The Sixth Sense

Question: Is there any connection between Kabbalah and religion? Is Kabbalah a religion?

Answer: Kabbalah is not a religion; it is a science. Kabbalah is about the part of reality that is hidden from us but with which we have an opportunity to work, like in science. Therefore, Kabbalah is called a science.

Through special actions that we perform on ourselves, we can reveal our senses for perceiving a higher level. We have five corporeal senses—vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch—through which we perceive this world, but in a very limited form. Yet we perceive it to some extent and live accordingly.

We cannot even imagine that in this world around us there are so many other phenomena because our senses do not reveal them in a manner similar to that we cannot see what happens far away without binoculars, or without a radar we don’t see what exists in the air except the sound waves that are in our voice diapason, and so on.

We have so many instruments that we created in order to broaden the range of our senses. But they can only expand them while the science of Kabbalah creates an additional sense, “the sixth sense,” through which we can reveal the rest of reality, which is hidden from us. Then we know what we live for and how to live correctly. This is precisely what a person needs to attain.

Question: What kind of additional sense is it?

Answer: This sense works like our corporeal senses, only our five senses act in the form of receiving, consuming, attracting within all the data that is outside. And this additional sense, which we develop through Kabbalah, operates according to the desire to give, bestow, and love.

We come outside of and rise above ourselves, and thus we are not limited by our body with its five senses. Our spiritual sense exists outside of our corporeal body. It is like we deploy this sense onto all of reality. Then we can perceive everything. In fact, this sense is the soul.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/9/15

The Refugee Crisis In Europe

Question: A gigantic flood of asylum seekers overwhelms Europe. Last year alone, 260,000 immigrants and refugees reached European shores. They flee wars, genocide, humanitarian crises, and bad lives.

As a result, the immense wave creates a tremendous tension and makes the situation uncontrollable.

It is especially hard for the countries that are already under the blows of the economic crisis. Middle Eastern problems disturb Europe and do not let it live quietly.

The question is how to cope with this disaster. There are numerous opinions about this issue. Some of them demand solidarity with the displaced masses of people, others plea to stop their invasion. What do you personally think about this matter?

Answer: Let those who agree with migrants open their doors and take care of them directly.

Maybe, this will resolve the problem.

People are supposed to stand behind their own ideals rather than affirm values that eventually are imposed on other people’s shoulders. If one thinks that displaced individuals should be taken care of, one has to do it personally. Any other behavior is just about lofty words.

Ambiguity has to be stopped immediately! Who else must implement one’s principles instead of the one who asserts them? If I support hospitality, I have to bear the burden on my own shoulders too.

Question: Still, don’t you think that a broader approach to the problem should be exercised? Whole countries seek help from the European Union.

Answer: Governmental institutions are useless here. Why talk about Greece if the richest countries such as France or Germany are not able to accomodate the flow of immigrants? There is no feasible solution even in the long run, especially taking into consideration the upcoming crisis.

So I repeat: each one who declares solidarity with migrants must personally implement it to life. If so, the resolution might be as follows: infiltrators are stopped at the borders, a line that moves forward to the degree of local Europeans’ desire to take personal care of displaced families should be formed. After getting permission to enter and stay in the country, refugees should go directly to concrete addresses.

For instance, when my family and I repatriated to Israel more than 40 years ago, we were given IDs in the airport and told exactly where to go. Moreover, there was a car that picked us up with our luggage and took us to Karmelia hotel in Haifa.

Is today’s Europe capable of accommodating migrants the same way? Can it provide work places, national insurance and other benefits to them? If not, then their arrival to Europe is totally unpredictable.

This explains why the only alternative today is the help of the private sector, community organizations, state bodies, and immigration offices that take full responsibility for refugees’ absorption. It must be done in an orderly way.

However, the situation is already in progress no matter that there is no feasible solution that works today, might work tomorrow or the day after. If migrants were stopped at the borders in the beginning of the process, if they were not allowed to  enter the European Union, no new waves of refugees would emerge. Only after taking an adequate decision on their accommodation will it become possible for them to reside in the countries of their destination. It’s a two-way street: no solution, no infiltration.

Acting otherwise is just impossible. If someone thinks that it is viable, let them implement their ideas literally and personally.

Instead of finding a solution, Europe allows unwanted guests settle in the parks, beaches, and temporary improvised shelters. Then what?

Anyone who claims that we should help the refugees is welcome to open his home to them. Words will not help here. The problem isn’t only in Greece but even in stronger countries like Germany and France, which cannot take care of the refugees.
(Rav Michael Laitman in a talk with Oren Levi and Tal Mendelbaum Ben Moshe).

Summary:

Anyone who claims that we should help the refugees is welcome to open his home to them. Words will not help here. The problem isn’t only in Greece but even in stronger countries like Germany and France, which cannot take care of the refugees.

Why is this happening today? The reason is that the world is taking on a new form, without boundaries, where everything is mixed and everything is round. Imagine meeting strangers in your kitchen or someone sleeping in your bed. It is scary! There is nowhere you can escape to. There is no place on this planet where you can be alone, not even 10 quiet square meters.

Why do we feel this way? So we will acknowledge our obligation to change our nature, to break out of our internal boundaries. Nature obliges us to develop to a level on which we will feel that we are all one heart, one body, and one thought. The corrections that we don’t perform in the relations between us are forced upon us by the steamroller of evolution.

It is actually the individualist Europeans who are given this crisis with the refugees since nature forces us to change our attitude to strangers and to regard them as if they were our children, “love thy friend as thyself.” There will also be financial blows and different natural blows that will teach us that we are all in one boat and that’s it!

Then the world will come to the nation of Israel and demand the solution from us, because the solution is found in the wisdom of Kabbalah, the wisdom of connection.

The refugee crisis in Europe is not a temporary crisis but actually part of a series of intentional blows that will force us to correct ourselves. The waves of immigrants that will lead to the mixing of populations will flood the world: from South America to North America, and Moslems all over the world. The Europeans will feel that they cannot go on living unless we change our attitude towards others. Then they will be worthy of the correction of human nature and will feel that the nation of Israel has the method for correction.

When we develop the ability to feel that we are all one family, life in our world will be Heavenly.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 8/27/15

The Torah: Changing Yourself In Order To Reveal The Creator

The Torah, “Numbers”, 14:13 – 14:16: Moses said to the Lord, “But the Egyptians will hear that You have brought this nation out from its midst with great power. They will say about the inhabitants of this land, who have heard that You, O Lord, are in the midst of this people; that You, the Lord, appear to them eye to eye and that Your cloud rests over them. And You go before them with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night, and if You kill this nation like one man, the nations who have heard of Your reputation will say as follows: ‘Since the Lord lacked the ability to bring this nation to the Land which He swore to them, He slaughtered them in the desert.'”

Moses seems to say to the Creator: “You could have educated your children properly, if not by incentives, then at least by punishment. What kind of an educator are you if you simply punish your children and kill them?”

Moses is the innermost point in a person’s heart, where he can be in contact with the Creator. When a person ascends to the next level, from the level of Bina to the level ofHochma, for example, he undergoes an internal change. He must say that! It isn’t that Moses suddenly begins to complain: “How dare you behave that way?!” On the whole, religious people fear such thoughts: “Is it possible to think that way about the Creator? God forbid! What will happen to me if I think this way?” On the other hand, here is the opposite situation, since after all, it is nature itself that was created by the Creator that now rebels against Him inside us so that we will actually understand our current situation is opposite from nature.

This means that when a person ascends and gets closer to the Creator, he can not be afraid to disagree with Him and curse Him, even from the depths of his soul. He is glad about such changes because they actually indicate his true, high state.

Therefore, what Moses says indicates that he is about to complete his level on which he led the people in the desert for 40 years. He turns the attribute of receiving into the attribute of bestowal and now attains the last corrections of his ego. This level is like a missile that has fulfilled its function, becomes detached, and burns up in the atmosphere.

Moses’ complaints stem from the state of the end of correction, after he completed his work on the current level. The next level is totally different and on this level there is the fulfillment of receiving with the intention to bestow.

It is impossible to perform the mission that the Creator now gives the people who have just crossed the desert and reached Him. This mission cannot be attained this way because the next phase is to receive with the intention of in order to bestow. In the next phase, called the crossing of the border of the land of Israel, changes in a person from the outside towards the inside take place and totally new vessels appear within him, which is a new method of working on himself and a new perception of the world. This isn’t only the feeling of the world but the beginnings of the realization of how he has to correct the world. Until then he only prepared himself to enter the land of Israel and conquer it, which means in order to defeat all the nations of giants that live there and to attain such a level that the giant fruits that he carried would become light because he can receive with the intention of in order to bestow.

So Moses’ complaints are just because he demands new powers and new knowledge from the Creator. He wants to learn a new correction and receive education on how to enter this land and conquer it. There has to be an extreme upheaval inside a person and he has to turn into a different person.

Question: Does that mean that Moses can complain to the Creator?

Answer: The talk between Moses and the Creator is the complete recognition of what should happen to him now: “I need an inner transformation and You have to do it for me.” If he doesn’t complain to the Creator about this, it means that he is not yet ready for the transition. Therefore, everything Moses says, which may seem like a serious attack on the Creator is actually desirable to Him. This means that a person understands what a serious inner transformation he has to undergo in order to start working with his ego with the intention of in order to bestow. No one can imagine this.

Comment: Instead of not saying the Lord’s name in vain and not being angry at Him etc., everything happens in the exact opposite manner.

Answer: We shouldn’t be afraid of anything. The Creator is the attribute of absolute goodness. He is still and lifeless until you bring Him to life through your feelings. Just as you can be angry at a volcano that destroyed a certain region or fear the sun, the moon, or earthquakes, when you attribute your feelings to still objects, you also relate to the Creator in the same manner, to the attribute of bestowal and absolute love. You cannot bestow in one way or another, but simply change yourself.

When you change yourself, you change your personal reception and so the Creator seems different to you. But you are actually the one who is changing yourself! The whole Torah is based on a prayer, which in Hebrew stems from the root word that means to judge yourself.

A prayer means self-judgment, and asks what I need to change inside myself in order to reveal the Creator as the absolute good. Of course, this where Moses’ job ends, but is a preparation for the next phase.[165477]From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/29/15

What Does The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Give Us?

Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” that the wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the creature in this world.

This means that every person who exists in our world can discover the Creator, i.e., the higher force that encompasses everything, manages everything, holds everything, is responsible for all activity of every atom, molecule, still, vegetative, and animate nature, and humans, surrounds everything, and fills everything, and there is none else besides Him.

This is the one and only higher force, and we can discover it with the help of a method called the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Throughout all of history, there were many people who discovered this force. They are called Kabbalists from the word “Kabbalah” (Reception) since they work on this discovery and receive this revelation.

To the degree that they discover the higher force, what is happening will become clear to them: why we are alive, for what do we live, how do we move correctly in this life, what must a person achieve as a result of his life, with what is he connected every day, what guides him, how must he respond correctly to the world that surrounds him at every moment of his life, how something is changed in him and in the world, why these changes happen in the world, and where all of this is leading.

A person begins to feel that he exists in a unique universe filled with forces and achieves the purpose of creation. This fills his life. He knows why he is alive, what he got up in the morning for, and with what is his day filled.

He isn’t advancing toward the end of life, but discovers the higher force more and more every day until he begins to feel it as the force that animates and guides him. He achieves this intellectually and emotionally.

Every person in our world can achieve this, as it is written, “…for they shall all know Me from their smallest to their greatest…” (Jeremiah 31:33), and “…for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). But first the people of Israel must achieve this and after that the entire world.

There was a time that Abraham wanted to bring all the Babylonians to this method, to truly carry out a spiritual revolution, but only a small number of the inhabitants of ancient Babylon joined him. He brought them to the land of Canaan and built thepeople of Israel from them. However, from the start, he wanted to bring all people to this spiritual level, so the wisdom of Kabbalah was intended equally for all.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/9/15

How Can We Bridge The Generation Gap?

Question: Why is there a period called youth in our development?

Answer: It is in order to enter life. If the youth knew and understood how to do it correctly, they would learn first and foremost from the sages and try to explore all the impulses that youth have with the help of the adults.

Question: What should be the relationships between the youth and their parents since, on the whole, they never listen to the parents?

Answer: The problem of fathers and sons is an eternal problem that repeats every generation since the time of the ancient Greek philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. There is nothing new here.

Today, the problem relates not only to fathers and sons, but also to mothers and daughters. In the past, men worked, went on journeys, explored new places, and invented different things while women were excluded totally from these areas and were expected to sit quietly at home and engage in housekeeping.

Therefore, in the past, this was considered a fathers and children problem, but it referred to the sons, and today it is a much greater problem and exists also between mothers and daughters.

Basically, I don’t see the relationships between parents and children as a problem since everything stems from our evolution. We are the only part in nature that evolves in such a turbulent manner from one generation to the next.

The next generation doesn’t feel that it belongs to the older generation anymore. They believe that the older generation is hopelessly old fashioned because there is such a quick change of desires, intentions, and goals.

I see it in my children and especially in my grandchildren. I don’t understand them, but I do understand and perceive the fact that I don’t understand them. They have a different attitude toward life.

So, what can we do? Both the older and the younger generations must undergo mutual education so that they could establish accurate communication between them; otherwise, they will be disconnected totally.

The younger generation demands to be given food, shelter, and clothing, and whatever they do is their own business and not their parents’. This is certainly not a solution to the situation. At the same time, the older generation cannot dictate to the younger generation what to do, and that isn’t the right solution.

There must be a continuous common aspiration for connection and mutual understanding, but mainly an aspiration for determining the right goal, the attainment of the attribute of absolute love by all of humanity, absolute mutual connection, absolute bestowal unto one another.

If the goal is right, it connects all the generations, but first we must reveal it. We first must teach the older generation so that they will understand the goal of the evolution of humanity, how it is advancing toward this goal, and how it perceives it.

If it is perceived correctly by both the older and the younger generations, all the opposition and conflict between them will disappear. The older generation will see this goal, what it can offer, and how to fulfill it in its paradigm, and the younger generation will perceive it in its paradigm. Then, these two generations will integrate into one another and mutually help one another attain it.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 10/8/14

At The Borders Of The Promised Land

Parshat Shelach speaks about what happens with a person before his entry into the land of Israel, meaning before ascent to the next spiritual level. Here, the example is given clearly of how it is necessary to go with faith above reason.

The next spiritual level that is revealed before a person is a wonderful world of a land flowing with milk and honey, but it is impossible to enter.

There was a time when the inhabitants of the Soviet Union dreamed about Communism, “This will be a good life! We can fulfill all of our wishes and needs, give vent to all our hopes, dreams, and desires!” But when they understood that  along with this comes equality, concern for others, and the necessity to work for everyone and feel happy about this, they immediately lost interest. Is this communistic happiness? Take it back!

So, when speaking about a land flowing with milk and honey, it is necessary to understand that this is not today’s milk and not today’s honey but completely different values for which I must create a desire and yearning within me.

They must specifically become the most important for me, and then I truly will enter into a state that will fulfill me like milk and honey.

Now, these values seem really terrible to me: to work for others, to be concerned for others, to think about them, and to be concerned for everyone. With this, I would fulfill my life?

Today, this seems like Hell to me! So, I need to change myself so that the new values will seem like the Garden of Eden to me, and then, for me, this land will become the Promised Land.

Question: Why are people against this? What is bad about living for others, thinking about them, and loving them?

Answer: There is nothing bad about this. Theoretically, this is basically a wonderful system, a wonderful state, but when it comes into actual practice, what happened in the Soviet regime, in the Kibbutzim and in other similar communities, is that nothing became concrete because our ego is against this.

It cannot even think about working for the sake of others. With us, the perception exists to fulfill myself, and if we think about others, this is only regarding how to satisfy ourselves through them.

The moment that a person begins to work on this, the romantic aspect ends immediately. The revolution devours its children.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/29/15

Locked In The Universe

A Kabbalist is a scientist who investigates our lives, this world, the reality in which we are found. However, he investigates it with special tools, with new senses developed within him. In the meantime, we don’t have senses like these through which it would be possible to discover the upper world that is now concealed from us.

This sixth sense is the feeling of the higher power, love and bestowal, that we do not possess now. We feel our world through our ego with the five corporeal senses.

Our egoistic desire wants to know, to understand, and to feel the reality in which we are. An approach like this locks us into some kind of closed sphere, this universe.

The universe only seems gigantic to us, but, in fact, it is nothing compared to the world that is found beyond its limits. We need to break out from this sphere and feel the reality that is outside of us, and for this we require an additional sense based upon bestowal.

We only have senses of reception now, so we draw everything to us and are limited only by this physical world. We call everything that is discovered through the five corporeal senses the world in which we live, but this world is given to us only so that throughout this life we would break out beyond its limits to a higher, more external and extensive world. How can we break out if we draw everything to us internally? So, we need to develop a sense of bestowal, instead of the sense of reception. This new feeling of bestowal takes us out of our physical sphere.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is designed to develop in a person a desire to bestow, to love, and to grant to him a feeling of the outside world. That is how he discovers that another reality exists that is right next to us, but is revealed only through a new approach: from yourself outward.

Therefore, it was written, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” is the great general rule of the Torah because it indicates what characteristic we must develop within us to feel the upper world, the higher power.

To be continued…
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/16/15

The Main Law Of Israel: General Integral Education

Question: We are all very different from one another. The nation of Israel is probably the most fragmented nation in the world since it is divided into a plurality of layers and factions in which there is an infinite number of differences.

If I differ from others, I can present to anyone an entire list of what he must correct about himself. So, how will we ever become one whole with all this criticism? After all, criticism invokes hatred and division. How should we unite if we are in continuous conflict?

Answer: We do it in discussion circles! These circles are held all over the country. In these circles, we try to teach people to connect and unite above all the differences. As it is written, “Love covers all transgressions.”

You can build love only when you ascend above all the “sins” that you see in others. The reason is that I see that the other is immersed in all the sins that are opposite to me, behaving in a contemptuous manner, relating only to others. I must build an umbrella of love that will cover all of us.

Question: What is this umbrella made of? What sustains it?

Answer: It is the fact that each of us ascends above himself in order to work out the connection with others. This is possible only with the help of education that the wisdom of Kabbalah offers to us.

We also must introduce this method of education in kindergartens, schools, universities, workplaces, and to the unemployed. It must become the most important thing! Every person, every citizen in Israel, should have a notebook with the tests and courses he has taken.

Question: What will these people study?

Answer: Integral education. They will learn how to become one nation, how to achieve brotherly love, connection and unity among everyone, and how to ascend above their ego and connect to others. Everyone must learn this; otherwise, he will not get any benefits from the state!

The study must be on a daily basis since a person must be renewed every day and must receive a new portion of knowledge. He must hear what he must fulfill, how crucial it is, what the connection and unity give us, and how it heals all of our illnesses.

This must become the general law, the supreme law of the country. After all, the problem of our country is to turn the nation into the nation of Israel since we will not be able to exist any other way.

We always have existed only if we were united and connected between us. The moment we ceased to be united, we fell from brotherly love to unfounded hatred, were thrown out of our land and dispersed among the nations of the world.

Now, we have returned to this land, but everyone already realizes that it is only temporary. Listen to what the American government says, to what the Europeans say, to what they keep saying in increasingly louder voices. They want to eliminate the state of Israel.

Question: What do you think can save us?

Answer: Just by becoming one whole! Then everyone will understand and feel that we are needed in the world because we set an example of connection and unity above all the differences. After all, this is what the world needs so much! This is called being a Light unto the nations.

All of nature is built on connection. If a single atom did not connect to another atom, we wouldn’t exist in this universe on this planet.

How has nature developed on this planet? It is only thanks to the connection of more and more components that were increasingly more different from one another. See what we have come to! This is the only way we can exist!

Now we must grow and ascend even higher in our internal, spiritual evolution so that we will be able to see the future world now, as it is written, “May you see your world in your lifetime.” It is all thanks to an increasingly greater connection. Nothing is attained any other way but by connection.

This is the reason that integral education isn’t just the education of “good kids” but a means to advance, not under the blows of nature, but thanks to the right solution of the problems that nature intentionally has given to us so that we will continue ascending above them and will unite more and more strongly. Now, we must continue the process of evolution, but by ourselves, implementing it on ourselves.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/2/15

The Torah Begins From A Secret

The possibility of attaining the higher power of nature was revealed for the first time to a person who lived 5,775 years ago.For this reason, he was called Adam HaRishon (the First Man). This is because he implemented in himself all kinds of corrections allowing him to discover the ability to feel, understand, and attain the higher force within himself, to break through to a dimension in which this force operates.

He was the first Kabbalist because he discovered a new sense that was not based upon the characteristic of reception but on the characteristic of bestowal. Adam wrote a book about the discovery of the higher force and was survived by his students who began to develop this method, making it possible for every person to develop within himself the sense for feeling the higher force, according to his desire.

Question: It is strange to hear this because we are used to this person being a half-legendary figure who lived with his wife Eve in the Garden of Eden and ate an apple from the tree of knowledge.

Answer: The idea is that the Torah always speaks in human language, even when it talks about very exalted things.

The Torah describes a unique spiritual process on a number of levels called PARDES(Pshat – Simplicity, Remez – Hint, Drush – Allegory, Sod – Secret), and if we know how to read it correctly, then we can reach the state of Adam HaRishon, Adam.

This PARDES is four levels of understanding the Torah, and attainment of the Torah begins from the Sod, as the giant Kabbalist, the Gaon of Vilna said, because still we don’t know anything. So, when we begin from Adam HaRishon who ate an apple, for us, this is a true secret because we don’t understand what the Torah is talking about.

However, if we work according to the Kabbalistic method, gradually we approach the hidden realm, the hidden higher force, and we begin to discover this part of creation. Then we begin to see in the Torah what is really happening there, and, from Sod, we move to the simplest interpretation, to the Pshat.

The Pshat symbolizes for us that everything that is said in the Torah is simple and revealed to our understanding.
To be continued…
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/16/15

What Makes The Human A Human?

Opinion (worldcrisis.ru): “Human children raised by animals don’t become people. This testifies that the person is not a natural reality, but the product of a particular cultural environment.

“We are not born human, rather we become human as a result of difficult cultural work. The society produces the person; the person is a social phenomenon. If during the formative stage, a person leaves society, he will not become a person; human consciousness is not recreated by itself.

“The Formation of a Human – The formation of a particular cultural type happens within appropriate social groups. Common interests and meaning unify, creating a stable social group. This meaning must transcend merely practical goals, otherwise it will not be able to connect anything. It is difficult to transform people into a group, the opposite can be accomplished by the destruction of social connections, meaning through a social war according to 4 trends:

1. The separation of a person from other people, the reduction of his area of interests to a daily minimum, putting him into a struggle for survival, into life problems that cannot be solved without help from the nation and society.
2. Through the escalation of drug addiction, alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, the propaganda machine working on human degeneration, television and the communications media giving examples to the impoverished population of the need for unlimited wealth, criminal behavior and disparagement of the norms of morality and law.
3. Undermining all forms of social integration, citizenship, work and family.

The family, the last bastion of morality – transfers from generation to generation through the family the arrangement of spiritual priorities and values of life. Precisely because all of the communications media are now working on the destruction of the institution of the family, the matter is heading towards a global crisis in the institution of the family. The growth of individualism in society (instead of family, freedom; living for yourself instead of having children), the weakening of moral factors that protected the family in the past; this is the true reason for divorce; people have forgotten how to live together.

4. Increasing the distance between the top and bottom line, splitting the society with incitement and the encouragement of forms of aggression and violence.

“A process of transformation of the population into laborers, the lack of social, professional and physical communication in life, in geographic location, without a profession, occupation and a stable place of employment. Students without profession.

“The Collapse of Humanity – Hevrah (society) is derived from the word “Hivrut(socialization)”. An idea and a common purpose create the collective. The human is shaped and grows only within society; the human is a social being. If the society is destroyed, the person begins to degenerate, to withdraw, and this is a comprehensive process. The national culture disintegrates, the human face is erased, and as a result of this, a subhuman person appears.

“Salvation – We need to establish our own social groups, build bridges with each other. The society must be built by our efforts from below, without waiting for the government to begin to be involved with this. If we don’t restore our society, death is inevitable.”

My Comment: We are seeing a widespread phenomenon that has been carefully planned by nature. We need to pass through this stage in order to create a new society, on different principles. We will not succeed in holding onto the past and there is no reason to hold onto what is already obsolete.

Society must acquire and accept its next form, full integration, until “And you shall love your friend as yourself” becomes a reality. But this imperative appears specifically as a result of the inevitable feeling that disintegration is happening!
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