Crossing Of The Red Sea (Yam Suf), Part 3

Question: What is the crossing of the Final Sea (Yam Suf – the Red Sea)?

Answer: The crossing of the Yam Suf means that only one who is really able to move to disconnection from any personal interest, from any thought about himself, and who wants to detach Pharaohfrom himself, and to run away, escape from Egypt, only for these people the sea parts.

Question: What is the “sea”?

Answer: The sea is those waters, that powerful force (Gevura), and that law of nature that with egoistic thoughts and intentions you cannot cross to the perception of reality that exists in altruistic intentions and thoughts outside of you.

Question: Why this sea is called Suf (end – final)?

Answer: Because this is the end of the power of Pharaoh, the end of Egypt. The end of the so-called “this world”; everything else is part of the future world.

Question: What does it mean that the sea splits into two halves?

Answer: It is really a miracle, a miracle of the exodus from Egypt, because the special force, which is called GAR of Hochma in the wisdom of Kabbalah, is operating here. The waters of the sea, these powerful forces, split in the middle; it means that the force of bestowal passes between them.

We are talking about the internal forces of a person. After all, this is not about people standing on the seashore but everything that happens inside a person. He suddenly feels that here he has an opportunity to get away from the control of the Pharaoh, to rise above him, and then the waters that he sees as a powerful force part in front of him.

Waters are not only the beautiful force of Hassadim, meaning mercy. Waters are also a powerful force. For some desires, the waters part, for others, they close and drown them.

Question: So how does the sea “split in the middle”?

Answer: The sea splits by the force of faith when I am ready to go above my knowledge, above my feelings, when I want to go according to universal bestowal, the all-inclusive force of love, the law that operates in the entire system as a counterweight to my current personal egoistic system.

And suddenly a miracle happens when I really can connect to the common system with my small sphere and see the whole system. And in my small sphere I see a real miracle when part of my desires can connect to the universal force of bestowal, to the common soul, and part of them “are drowning in the sea,” meaning, they undergo a special correction when they “drown,” and then due to it, they awake and begin to correct themselves.

Question: Does the strength of man’s faith force the sea to split?

Answer: Yes. If I agree for this to happen, really agree and am ready to pay for it with my slavery and my escape, then a miracle happens. This is called a miracle because it happens to me, not according to the order of degrees, but suddenly and not according to the order of cause and effect. Although when I reach such a state it definitely happens.

There are laws that apply. You come to a point where if you satisfy these conditions, a miracle happens to you as well, like to any other person. So why is it a miracle? Because you can’t imagine how it happens. But you can reach this point where a miracle will happen.

Question: You were saying that we live inside such a program that draws us like laser beams; all that we see around us, in fact, does not exist and there is only a thought that plays a movie in front of us…

Answer: This is our life, the game of imagination.

Question: What is the crossing of the Yam Suf in this movie?

Answer: It is detachment from our egoism and affiliation with a common system that we see, feel, and become included in. Integral desires, thoughts, and capabilities that are common for the entire system are revealed in us. We understand everything that happens in the world from end to end, how we need to behave, and how from this moment on we reach the goal that is common for the entire system where finally we can answer the question, “What are we living for?” The crossing of the Red Sea is a transition to a new vision of the side of this system that is projecting this movie to us.

Question: What is the condition for a person standing in front of the Yam Suf (the Red Sea) to be able to perform a miracle that the sea will part before him and he will enter this upper thought that projects the entire reality to us?

Answer: The requirement is very simple! He must join Moses, that thought and that desire within him. He must listen to his voice and just be adhered to him without scrutiny, criticism, without anything! Just to follow him!

Moses is the quality of bestowal and love, the union between all, meaning the group where we realize this method. Only unity! With its help we escape the Pharaoh who wants to divide us all.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/21/16

“The West Dies With Its Gods”

Opinion (The American Conservative): “A people’s religion, their faith, creates their culture, and their culture creates their civilization. And when faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people begin to die. Is this not the recent history of the West?

“Today, no great Western nation has a birthrate that will prevent the extinction of its native-born. By century’s end, other peoples and other cultures will have largely repopulated the Old Continent.

“European Man seems destined to end like the 10 lost tribes of Israel—overrun, assimilated, and disappeared. And while the European peoples—Russians, Germans, Brits, Balts—shrink in number, the U.N. estimates that the population of Africa will double in 34 years to well over 2 billion people.What happened to the West? As G. K. Chesterton wrote, when men cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing, they believe in anything.

“As European elites ceased to believe in Christianity, they began to convert to ideologies, to what Dr. Russell Kirk called ‘secular religions.’ For a time, these secular religions—Marxism-Leninism, fascism, Nazism—captured the hearts and minds of millions. But almost all were among the gods that failed in the 20th century.

“Now Western Man embraces the newer religions: egalitarianism, democratism, capitalism, feminism, One Worldism, environmentalism. These, too, give meaning to the lives of millions, but these, too, are inadequate substitutes for the faith that created the West.

“For they lack what Christianity gave man—a cause not only to live for, and die for, but a moral code to live by, with the promise that, at the end a life so lived, would come eternal life. Islam, too, holds out that promise. Secularism, however, has nothing on offer to match that hope.”

My Comment: But beyond the promise of eternal life is the ability to attain in this world something that is not promised, but which the wisdom of Kabbalah offers as a method for the revelation of the Creator to His creatures in this world.
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UNESCO Ignores The Historical Connection Of Judaism To The Temple Mount

In the News (aljazeera.com): “The resolution, adopted by the United Nations cultural agency’s 58-nation executive board last week, condemns the Israeli government’s stewardship of Jerusalem and decries the renovation of “so-called Jewish ritual baths” and the alleged creation of ‘Jewish fake graves.’

“Sites are either referred to by their Arabic or English names, or, in the case of the Western Wall Plaza, the holiest site where Jews can pray, are put in quotation marks.

“The Western Wall is in East Jerusalem’s historic Old City, which was occupied by Israel along with the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 Middle East war, though Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed the Jerusalem Law, which in 1980 declared the city ‘complete and united.’

“However, the vast majority of the international community – including the United States, the European Union and the UN – do not recognise Israel’s claims to sovereignty over East Jerusalem.”

My Comment: The Jewish people emerged under the leadership of Abraham in ancient Babylon through the union of separate families, clans, and tribes. They agreed to become a single society whose purpose was to attain the relationship of “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). In such relationships between people, the property of love that manages the world manifests. This characteristic is called the Creator.

As a result of the egoism that dominates us, we exist inside the property of love, as in an impenetrable bubble. Within it, we feel our world, in its egoism. Kabbalah calls to us to unite in spite of our egoism, to break through the membrane of this bubble and discover for ourselves the upper eternal and perfect world.

Humanity subconsciously waits for unification of the Jewish people to show the example (to be a light to peoples of the world) of how it is possible to unite in the integral world. As long as we don’t fulfill this Mitzvah (commandment) to bring the whole world to unity with the Creator, the world will hate us. The more that we reject our mission, the more we will be witness to greater and greater hatred of the world toward us.
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Our Universe Is Completely Accidental

Opinion (brainpickings.org): “Questions like why our world exists and what nothing is have occupied minds great and ordinary since the dawn of humanity, and yet for all our scientific progress, they continue to do so, yielding only hypotheses rather than concrete answers. …

“Alan Lightman points to fine-tuning — the notion that the basic forces propelling our universe appear to be fine-tuned in such a way as to make the existence of life possible — as a centerpiece of how modern scientists have attempted to answer these age-old questions. …

“‘On one thing most physicists agree. If the amount of dark energy in our universe were only a little bit different than what it actually is, then life could never have emerged. A little larger, and the universe would have accelerated so rapidly that matter in the young universe could never have pulled itself together to form stars and hence complex atoms made in stars. And, going into negative values of dark energy, a little smaller and the universe would have decelerated so rapidly that it would have recollapsed before there was time to form even the simplest atoms.’ …

“‘Out of all the possible amounts of dark energy that our universe might have, the actual amount lies in the tiny sliver of the range that allows life. There is little argument on this point. It does not depend on assumptions about whether we need liquid water for life or oxygen or particular biochemistries. It depends only on the requirement of atoms. As before, one is compelled to ask the question: Why does such fine-tuning occur? And the answer many physicists now believe: the multiverse. A vast number of universes may exist, with many different values of the amount of dark energy. Our particular universe is one of the universes with a small value, permitting the emergence of life. We are here, so our universe must be such a universe. We are an accident. From the cosmic lottery hat containing zillions of universes, we happened to draw a universe that allowed life. But then again, if we had not drawn such a ticket, we would not be here to ponder the odds.’”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah reveals a different cause for the universe and life within it—the existence of a higher intelligence. It reveals the reason and doesn’t put forth a new theory.

In addition, the question still remains in the theory proposed about the cause of matter, energy, and information. So Mr. Lightman, in my opinion, is wrong.
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Dispelling Myths About Kabbalah, Part 6

Blessing and Mistake

Question: What is the meaning of various amulets, charms, or blessings?

Answer: A belief in charms and blessings is a big mistake. These objects do not have any connection with Kabbalah. How can one bless a person with words if the only possible blessing is getting closer to the Creator?

If a person performs acts of bestowal and aspires to love his neighbor, he receives from above additional Light, the Light that Reforms. It is called a “blessing.” However, it is impossible to hand out blessings to others.

Some time ago the Baal Shem Tov had to write a blessing for some person. He did not allow this person to open the note and read what was written. When Baal Shem Tov died this person decided to open this note and he saw that Baal Shem Tov simply wrote his name, Israel.

Among the real Kabbalists it is not customary to hand out blessings. The authentic Kabbalistic books like The Book of Creation, The Book of Zohar, Tanakh do not mention amulets or blessings. A person receives a blessing from the Creator.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103 FM, 103FM, 2/28/16

New Life #725 – Memorial Day: An End To Bereavement

New Life #725 – Memorial Day: An End To Bereavement
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

Why is Israel in a continuous struggle for its existence? How can we put an end to war and and what is the way Kabbalah provides a sense of security for us and for the world?

I was born into the grief of WWII and when I came to Israel I served in the army and in the military reserve forces. Memorial Day is a day of self-searching.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we live in the system of nature in which there are clear and definite laws. As Jews, we are given freewill and our role is to balance the world in which the negative egoistic force constantly grows. The first to balance the world was Adam, and then there was Abraham. Abraham told people how to cope with egoism with the help of the positive force in nature. The nation of Israel that gathered around him learned how to build a connection above the ego and to balance the two forces in nature.

The roots of the nation of Israel, which was built on love of others, are its uniqueness. If we go back to our role and bring the positive force to the world, no one will rise against us. Instead of competing against each other, we have to invoke a new type of competition, competition over mutual help. We have to get closer to the force of love for the sake of all the fallen soldiers, and then we will also feel all the souls among us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #725 – Memorial Day: An End To Bereavement,” 5/5/16

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Crossing Of The Red Sea (Yam Suf), Part 2

There are several levels in the relationship between people and the upper force, the thought of creation.

Some people think the following: “Apparently, there is an upper force that has a great goal. This force demands that we do what it desires in our lives. If we do what it desires in a simple form only, in our material life, and keep the commandments, we will receive a reward.”

For some, the reward can be feeling good in this life, and therefore they consider it worth doing. For others it is that they will have a future world after death.

There are still other people who don’t agree with this and think differently: “The upper force doesn’t want us to relate to this system in which we now exist in such a simple form, meaning just to make this life here better or even to acquire a so-called future world after it.”

On the contrary, this upper force wants us to know it, to reach its level, to become similar to it, to take care of the entire system the way it does, and through this, to become its partners. It wants each small part within this system, each person, to take upon himself the burden of care throughout the common system and influence the entire system from his personal point, the way that the upper force influences and supports this entire system with bestowal and love, because it is good and does good.

Hence, there is a difference between these three types of people. The first two types, who care about their personal life in this world or in the future world, stay in their egoism with Pharaoh and don’t want to leave him. But they are prepared to fulfill the commands of the upper force while staying within their egoism.

Only people of the third type don’t agree with this and say, “The upper force wants us to be like it, to attain bestowal and love of others, because ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ is the main rule of the Torah.” These people are ready to exit Egypt and escape with Moses away from their egoism, are willing to exit control of the ego. This means they exit Egypt.

When they run away—wishing to disconnect from self-care, care for their relatives, and rise a little to care for the common system—they don’t leave their personal concerns, but understand that all of this can exist only in one space together with everyone, and that all of humanity, all the people and all of the souls, are one global system, and a person cannot care only about his personal well-being because it will make him similar to an animal.

Then, while trying to think about great things, to break away from the control of their egoism and thus disconnect from it, they suddenly feel that this egoism comes, grabs them, and says, “No! Why do you need to completely disconnect from me? You can, together with me, earn the future world and a little bit in this world. Please, keep all of the commandments, even ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ but think about how to make yourself feel good, providing yourself with the future world and everything else!”

It means that forces are awakening in a person that tell him that he needn’t fully disconnect from egoism because, by that, where would you go, into what world, what kind of strange space? Take care of everyone, but make sure it is for your own good!

Then, man sees that he is haunted by these forces, these thoughts that are called “God-fearing servants of Pharaoh.” On the one hand, they seemingly are ready to do everything that the upper force tells them, to keep commandments, but just not to disconnect from self-love and not to move to universal love, to the love of others.

These who go with Moses ask, “So what do we do?” And they answer, “Keep only physical commandments, but without the intention to bestow in order to do good to others. Do it only to do good to yourself, in order to earn this world and the future world. Keep the commandments, but your intentions should stay egoistic.”

This absolutely contradicts the desires and thoughts that go with Moses because what is most important for them is to disconnect from thoughts about self-benefit and to move to thoughts of benefit for others, and from them to thoughts about the benefit of the common system, that is, the Creator.

There is a big fight between them here. These egoistic forces pursue the forces that go with Moses, wanting to catch them, stop them, and return them back to Egypt, meaning to corporeal, purely egoistic work. After all, the Pharaoh was clever. He was saying, “Do you want to perform all of the actions that the Creator commanded you here? Please do!”

It means that the exit from Egypt is exactly when I disconnect from the intention to receive for myself, for self-benefit, and think only, purely, about the benefit for others apart from myself. This is called exiting Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. These egoistic desires called “God-fearing servants of Pharaoh” are not capable of doing it. Hence, they have no other corrections, except drowning in the Red Sea on the way.

The Red Sea is this crossing between Egypt, where I am under control of the Pharaoh, and a place where I am disconnected from him, where I can’t think about self-benefit. Perhaps, I still can’t think about the benefit for others, but I am exiting the control of self-love.

Therefore, there is no other correction for these desires, apart from drowning them in the Red Sea. This way, they sacrifice themselves and then gradually are corrected. Of course, desires can’t die. This is just a way of processing them when they lose, correct them, and then they rise to correct work, completely in bestowal and love, and in power of the light of faith.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/21/16

New Life #727 – Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai

New Life #727 – Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

We live in a world that is incomprehensible to the human ego that has developed and become imbalanced. Kabbalists advise us to balance the human ego through thewisdom of Kabbalah, a scientific method for revealing the positive force in nature. The first to discover this method was Adam, and Abraham was the one who developed it so that it could be implemented in a group.

Abraham gathered people into a large group divided into small groups of ten called aMinyan. Under his guidance, the members of the group learned to feel the whole system of the upper world. Later the members of the group underwent many changes until they reached a state in which their egoism erupted to such an extent that they could not connect anymore, as described in the story of Joseph and his brothers. Then the same group went down to Egypt where egoism developed even more, and under the leadership of Moses, they exited Egypt and received the Torah, the method of connection.

When the members of the group couldn’t balance the evil force in them and the connection between them was broken, the Temple was also destroyed and they were exiled, exiled from the good force, from the balanced system. In those times Rabbi Akiva taught the method of love and his student Rabbi Shimon, who wrote The Book of Zohar, was the Kabbalist who brought us the practical method of fulfilling the rule of “love thy friend as thyself” in society.

The Book explains how to extract the good force, hidden in nature, which balances the evil force, the human ego. Baal HaSulam wrote the commentary for The Book of Zoharand brought about the revelation of The Zohar to the public in the 20^th century.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #727 – Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai,” 2/24/15

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Becoming Equal To The Creator

Question: How can one become equal to the Creator?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with revealing the Creatorto every person in our world. Yet a person can attain the Creator only to the degree that they are similar to Him.

Our qualities have to correspond to what we want to reveal. After all, everything that we attain in this world is derived from the equivalence of form to what exist in nature. Accordingly, we create various sensors, detectors, that are capable of determining or sensing objects or phenomena the way our senses do.

During the course of man’s development, he advances toward resembling the Creator, attaining absolute adhesion with Him in even the smallest attributes, and replacing all of his present base egoistic qualities.

Sooner or later, every one of us will have to reach this, in not during present lifetime, then during the next. We will be obligated to return to this world and attain the goal of creation anyway. To the degree that we form the properties of the Creator within us, gradually occupying the entire space, we will begin to feel ourselves in His place. After all, the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals the system that governs the universe, making it possible for us to become the Creator’s partners.

To correct our egoistic qualities into altruistic, we need to attract special forces from a higher informational layer of the universe, which will change us. So our task amounts to drawing upon ourselves the upper forces that will transform us to become like the Creator.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/13/16

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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