Ynet: “Simchat Torah To Illuminate The New Year”

Ynet: “Simchat Torah To Illuminate The New Year”

Posted on November 5th, 2016 at 8:43 pm

From my column in Ynet: “Simchat Torah To Illuminate The New Year”

Some of us are averse to it, others are curious about it, and at times it arouses controversy. One thing is certain, it is impossible to remain completely indifferent to it. Rav Laitman’s thought provoking article about the joy and the internal force of the Torah.

“Rejoice in Simchat Torah” is the unofficial anthem of the Simchat Torah celebrations, an ancient custom of celebrating the day on which we complete the reading of the weekly section of the Torah (Parashat Hashavua) and begin to read them anew. But what is it about the most popular book in human history that makes us so happy and joyful? Is it wealth? Health? The well being of the family? If it isn’t in order to bring us joy, what is it for, what is the Torah meant for?

The Torah isn’t just a decorated parchment rolled in the Holy Ark, or a synonym for the five Chumashim. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is an internal spiritual force, an upper force, concealed in the Torah, or as Kabbalists call it—Light, which is the source of all the goodness in the world.

The ARI opens his book The Tree of Life with the words: “Behold that before the emanations were emanated and the creatures were created, the upper simple Light had filled the whole existence.” The Light is the force that preceded the creation, which created the matter of the universe in the Big Bang 14 billion years ago and spread in every direction.

Kabbalists describe the Light as a kind of force, a law of nature, or an attribute that can bestow infinite abundance. The Light is the force that is opposite from our egoistic nature, which aspires only to receive more and more pleasure. As a result of the Light’s attribute to give, to bestow, and to generate life, the galaxies, the stars, and all of the inanimate nature, the plants, and the animals, and finally us humans were created in order to give us absolute eternal goodness. Even if we are not aware of it, our whole life revolves around the Light. We explore it with the tools that we have, but even when we reach the peak of global research by modern physics and it seems that we are just about to reveal the essence of the Light, to decode the secret of life, and to ascend to new dimension, the opposite is revealed: the Light has attributes that our limited psychology cannot perceive.

Giving vs. Receiving

Unlike scientists, Kabbalists explore the laws of creation and the spiritual reality. Having attained absolute eternal goodness, they describe the reality they felt for us: every moment the Light provides us with infinite abundance, but because our attributes are opposite form the attribute of the Light, we cannot receive the pleasure from it. They tell us that a person naturally operates only in order to enjoy and so that he will feel good, even if attaining this pleasure involves hurting others, abusing them, or harming them. “All the afflictions a person feels are only due to his innate attribute of receiving.” (Baal HaSulam). That’s the way we were born; this is our nature, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem begins when the force of giving and the force of receiving clash and then we feel bad…

Today we are at a point of transition to a new era in human development, as Kabbalists tell us. To be exact, we are already living in a reality that ties all of humanity into one global system. It is a closed system in which we are affected by each other and are connected not only by infinite relay stations and communication channels but also in our hearts. The laws of giving make the system go round according to the attribute of giving of the Upper Light. We live in a world that is managed by a certain regularity, which we don’t understand. If we wish to know these laws, to act according to them, and to be able to enjoy a better life, we have to discover new senses by ourselves and to develop attributes that are similar to the Light. As long as we continue to hold on to our egoistic attributes, there will be a continuous clash between the opposite forces, or in other words, we are in a crisis.

The crisis symbolizes the end of the current phase of our development, the last point after which we will not be able to develop any further. This doesn’t mean that from now on we will not continue to improve our lives, but it is a delicate phase in the process of human evolution that signifies the deep and qualitative point of crisis. It is enough to look at all the abundance we have developed in the last decades in order to ask where all this is leading us? Are we happier or more joyful? Does the great amount of property we have accumulated fill our lives with satisfactions and interest? Even when it comes to answering these questions, humanities, social sciences, and economics have reached a dead end.

With the Help of the Light

The word “crisis” has a negative connotation of hardship and a breaking, but according to the sages, it can also have a positive meaning in Hebrew—the seat of a woman to give birth—a place where new life is created. In ancient Greek the word “crisis” means a decision or a turning point, meaning rebirth. In Chinese the word “crisis” means danger combined with an opportunity. Similarly, the crisis we undergo today in every aspect of life: in science, politics, education, society, and even the life of individuals and community life is in a kind of labor pains, an intermediate phase that is meant to speed up our development and help us be reborn to a new life.

For generations, Kabbalists have paved the way to the next phase for us by using a serious reliable method, the method of connection, the wisdom of Kabbalah. In all their writings, they say, whether openly or in a concealed manner, that the precondition for our advancement is tightening the unity between us. If we only change our egoistic nature from self-love to love of others and love instead of hate, if we get closer and connect instead of drawing away, we will be able to experience infinite pleasure, just like the Light. We can only change our nature by the force of the Light that is concealed in the writings of Kabbalists.

By trying to feel as one, like the one force, a tiny point of contact with the upper Light, with the force of the Torah, awakens. Thus we gradually become filled with the feeling of life. Just like the flames of a bonfire heat all those sitting around it, so does the connection between us illuminate and warm the hearts. But in order to kindle the flame, we have to give up more and more egoistic parts and add them to the fire. Only when we gradually eradicate all the hidden parts in us that demand for themselves, will we reach the general love between us, the Light of the Torah, or as it says: “love thy friend as thyself is the great rule of the Torah.”

So what can we do now? At this point it is enough if we try to unite our small desires into one common desire. The influence of the Light unto us will grow according to the intensity of the connection between us, and instead of forcing us to connect due to troubles and crises, the Light will simply illuminate and draw us toward it like a
shiny object. It is in our hands. The better and more considerate the relations between us are, the more the Light will affect us and we will become human beings, Adam, (Man) stemming from the Hebrew word “Domeh” to “resemble the upper” (Isaiah 14; 14). Then we will begin to live an eternal life and to feel dimensions that are above the limitations of time, motion, and place, just like the attributes of the Light.

For Your Own Sake

Toward the end of the holiday season, it is important that we sum up our self-examination during this time. We should clarify one major point: does our desire operate for our own sake or for the sake of others? Do we care about those around us just as we care about our own children, or are we perhaps motivated by caring about our own benefit? This is exactly what separates us from the feeling of happiness, from the Light we yearn for.

Even if after self-scrutiny we discover that we care only about ourselves, by one thousandth or even one hundredth percent, there is room for joy. Why? Because we discover an opportunity to summon the Upper Light to operate on us, to correct the corrupt relations between us from self-love to love of others. Every small change that brings us closer to each other also brings us closer to the feeling of the Upper Light. The more we operate in mutual guarantee, as the nation of Israel should, the more we will fulfill our role in the world and are a Light unto the nations of the world, and the Upper Light will spread through us to all of humanity. “The children of Israel have become responsible for each other in order to correct the whole world by the force of the Torah, since everything depends on the children of Israel. All of the created beings will follow them just as they correct themselves.” (“Sefat HaEmet“).

The connection between us is a source of life, and the good relations between us generate the rejoicing of the Torah. It is actually today, unlike the time when we lived in exile, that we can reach great joy. It isn’t only as a result of the encircling the synagogue while singing and dancing with the Torah scrolls on Simchat Torah, but the real joy that will stem from the connection with the source of the Light, with the Torah.

According to The Book of Zohar, the Torah is Light and a person who engages in the Torah receives the upper Light. The Light of the Torah is the force that reforms us from division to connection; it is the force that builds us as a nation, that fills us with love and warmth, that raises us to complete eternal life ,and that guarantees joy.

“Since the part that every member of Israel has in the Torah is his own Torah, and each and every one with his part and his book are included into one, and then the Torah is whole and the Dinim (judgments) in the world are mitigated, and when everyone comes together as one, it is great joy, the rejoicing of the Torah, Simchat Torah (“Likutei Halachot“).
[195594]From Ynet article 10/20/16

New Life #380 – Behind The Scenes

New Life #380 – Behind The Scenes
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

How do we create a play that is timeless? Which compositions do we need today that would correspond with the changes that humanity undergoes, and how can a good play contribute to our development?

The director gives an updated interpretation of old classical plays. There are actors who dress up just like the hero in the play and there are those who add their own. We live in very special times today, and the world needs new compositions. Compositions were always based on the power of the ego. The hero was the one who overcame others.

Today the world is integral. The new hero is the one who knows how to connect different people and establish mutual complementation, connection. Modern plays have to be based on today’s life, on how to heal the world. The moral of the play should be that there is one remedy for all the illnesses in the world: the right connection between us.
[154554]
From KabTV”s “New Life #380 – Behind The Scenes,” 5/22/14

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On The Other Side Of Perception

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that any spiritual work does not imply physical actions.

Everything should take place only in human desire. Kabbalah operates with what was actually created: desire. Only it can be controlled by the Creator and by a person from below. There is nothing else.

It seems to us that all around us is a material world, but this world is illusory. It exists only in our internal representations. As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” there is a special “screen” on the back side of our brain that projects all of our thoughts and feelings, and draws for us some supposed kind of reality that we see before us.

In fact, we see nothing. Let’s say that before us are, for example, a table, wall, a world, stars, and galaxies, but none of that exists. It just seems to us that way.

This is a very complex system of senses. The task of the Kabbalist is to go beyond ordinary earthly senses to give a person the correct view of the world, the right sensation of it. Therefore, this wisdom called Kabbalah is the science of the correct perception of true reality: what it is and how it is manifested.

The Creator didn’t envisage that a person would do anything physically because this entire dreamlike world that surrounds us is an illusion. It is written in The Book of Zohar that, when we enter the sensation of the upper world, we begin to understand that everything previously was like a dream.

Nevertheless, even if we obtain spiritual sight, we remain between the two worlds and feel them both. However, the amount we allegedly sense through our earthy qualities, called Olam Ha Medume, are invented, imposed on us by an illusory world.

The real world that we reveal is our true world, and there is a connection between these worlds. A person feels the entire illusion of this world and all of the truth of the upper world. Everything that exists in the world called other world—that is, the world located on the other side of our perception, our illusion—influences the pattern of this world, and thus we gradually adjust to the revelation of the true world.

A person is given everything in order to build and do something not physically with the hands and legs, but to perform actions in his desire because desire is the real material of creation, apart from which nothing was created.

All physical commandments, services in the temples, and so on, apply only to the inner spiritual fulfillment of our desires and intentions. That’s it! Therefore, it is said, “I don’t want from you palaces, precious garments, pomposity that lead only to violence and the struggle for power. I need from you only the purity of the heart, the work on your own desires.”

We must understand clearly what the spiritual root and its consequence mean in our world, how this root affects our perception, and how it forces us to see certain physical images that we supposedly discover through our five senses. It is “supposedly” because it is all like a dream, and sometimes it seems even more real than the true reality.

However, all of this is a projection on us from the upper source, the upper root, that, like a very tricky projectionist, shows a movie within us called “life.” It seems to us that we exist in a body in which we interact, move, and so on, but as soon as we wake up a little bit, we discover that it was all a dream, as it is written in The Book of Zohar.

When we enter into contact with the root and not with the consequence, we will begin to understand why it happened this way, why we were shown this movie called life, why it was so varied and rich in colors, sounds, and so on, that captivated us so much. In fact, we feel very small, literally microscopic influences, narrow in both the depth and spectrum of perception, but we think it is something unusual.

Everything that happens around us is projected by the small egoism of a person in the point where each of us perceives the world. But once the ego begins to expand, we feel in the developing ego the next picture of the world, but already corrected. After all, egoism can expand only by correction! Then, apart from a small point, we begin to imagine the upper world.

We attain the roots of everything that happens to us and to the world, we see how one can interact with this system, accelerate its development, expansion, and demonstration to us. Then, it becomes clear: this is the root and this is its consequence. And we, by influencing the root, can change the consequence.

In principle, at the moment, we are not able to change our world. It becomes possible only when we launch our influence on its root. Therefore, while we are in this world, we see that it doesn’t work for us and that we can’t do anything.

However, when humanity comes to a state of complete detachment, depression, and helplessness, then it will hear that there is another way, and it is the only proper one, not through our egoism that controls us, but through our controlling it. Then, we can rise up and begin to reveal the true world.
[195601]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/30/16

Love For Children

Question: As a mother, I feel that my great love for my children is mixed with anxiety, and it seems that the Creator mocks my ego through my children.

Answer: The Creator doesn’t abuse anyone. It is actually people who abuse themselves by not performing the actions of corrections that they can perform and, thus, invoke suffering in vain.
[195432]

Reshimo, Spiritual Data

Question: What is a Reshimo?

Answer: A Reshimo is a person’s recorded spiritual data, the only real thing in us that is valuable, ancient, and that we must develop.

According to the Reshimo, we can determine how close a person is to the correct fulfillment of the goal of the creation. People feel it according to how important it is for them to understand why they are living, for what purpose, and how.
[195474]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/9/16

Temple From The Aggregation Of The Hearts

Torah, Deuteronomy 12:3: And you shall tear down their altars, smash their monuments, burn their asherim with fire, cut down the graven images of their gods, and destroy their name from that place.

Humanity has developed through the construction of various religious temples, which to this day are erected all over the world, and they compete as to whose structure is higher, more beautiful, more reliable, and it creates a special feeling in people.

All of this is for a person to gradually realize the wrong way and, only after this, to see the right way.

Question: What does “smash their monuments” mean regarding the internal work of a person?

Answer: Only after you build various intentions, movements, and targets within yourself and are convinced of their failure, can you smash them and build a structure in their place called the “temple of the Creator.”

This structure is internal, within the hearts of the people. Each likens his desires, his heart, brick by brick, and from the aggregation of these bricks, create a single structure. All of our desires unite, find contact with each other, and then the Creator is revealed in them.

“Burn their asherim with fire” means to not leave anything within yourself because the sacred trees represent everything material toward which we rushed throughout thousands of years of human history, and the ashes are the last inanimate stage, and everyone must reach this state.
[195333]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/22/16

“The World Needs A Policeman”

In the News (Wall Street Journal): “‘The United States Must Be the World’s Policeman,’ by Anders Fogh Rasmussen …

“From my former positions as prime minister of Denmark and secretary-general of NATO, I know how important American leadership is. We desperately need a U.S. president who is able and willing to lead the free world and counter autocrats like President Putin. A president who will lead from the front, not from behind.

“The world needs such a policeman if freedom and prosperity are to prevail against the forces of oppression… .

“The Middle East is torn by war. In North Africa, Libya has collapsed and become a breeding ground for terrorists. In Eastern Europe, a resurgent Russia has brutally attacked and grabbed land by force from Ukraine. China is flexing its muscles against its neighbors—and the rogue state of North Korea is threatening a nuclear attack.

“In this world of interconnections, it has become a cliché to talk about the “global village.“ But right now, the village is burning, and the neighbors are fighting in the light of the flames. Just as we need a policeman to restore order; we need a firefighter to put out the flames of conflict, and a kind of mayor, smart and sensible, to lead the rebuilding.”

My Comment: In principle, the United States has no right to be a policeman.
Today the world is crumbling and breaking up and a great war is inevitable unless people unite.

Ostensibly, the European Union tried to unite everyone under the auspices of a single bank and a single industry. On the other hand, America is trying to unite everyone through its power and through NATO, but these are not the ways that will lead to unity.

Unity is possible only through education, explaining in circles and all kinds of educational processes based only on altruistic principles like, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Clearly, this is a long term project, but at least in an educational process of this kind it will be explained, not who is higher or lower, but that everyone is equal and should be united.

This doesn’t exist in NATO or in America, and not in Europe. All of these associations are like armed police, one through the economy, a second through politics, and the third through power. I don’t think anything positive can happen from it.

There is nothing for a person without the right education. Education is the only source for our good future.

So first and foremost, we need to place the principle, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” and methodically begin to move toward it according to the appropriate method.

But neither America nor Europe can help the world. They need help themselves.
[194894]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/21/16

How Is It Possible To Help A Man?

Question: How can I help my husband become spiritual?

Answer: First and foremost, he needs to study in a group. It makes no difference if we are talking about a man or a woman in the physical body. For example, if, on the screen in front of me, I see a group in which there is one man sitting in the back and all of the rest are women, I actually relate to them as a group of men because I perceive them according to their longing.

I see that these people are very strong. They are trying and longing to develop spiritually. Indeed, their form is female, but this is only a mask and a unique physiology, nothing more than this.

In spirituality, to give birth, to feed, give, breast-feed, and develop are the actions of a man on a Kabbalistic level. From within himself, he grows and gives birth within himself to the next level. He develops, nourishes, and takes care of it. So, is this the role of a woman or a man?

We need to consider everything according to a person’s spiritual deeds and actions.
[195044]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/26/16

How Freedom Of Choice Is Expressed

Question: How is freedom of choice expressed in a person? Is he responsible for his approach to the Creator?

Answer: The truth is that we have no freedom of choice in that, either. Rather, our only choice is in awakening our desire to follow the path of development of all of nature.

Otherwise, we are under the complete control of the Creator. When a person carries out the program of creation before it becomes realized in him, in this way, he is realizing his freedom of choice.
[195487]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/9/16

I Do Not Want To Be An Ant!

Question: Is it our future to become an “anthill,” from individualism to a herd?

Answer: An “anthill” with consciousness is the collective intelligence, the collective feeling that raises us to the next level.

A person doesn’t become an unconscious ant and doesn’t stop perceiving and understanding himself. He doesn’t lose his individuality, like birds or fish that move in a flock or school.

We remain independent because each one of us is an independent part of all of humanity. He can give to humanity what no one else can provide to the general system, to the one single body.

So, through our inclusion in the special integral connection between us on the level of Adam (Man), we rise to the next level of unity. We begin to feel the hidden sides of nature; awareness of the next level appears in us where we feel the forces that manage the entire world.

This next level has no connection to our world. We need to climb up to it.

When we rise to this next level with our new collective intelligence, with a collective desire, we exist outside of time, space, or change of physical location. We enter into the state of the infinite world, eternal and perfect.

This is not just becoming like ants.

Individuality is not nullified, rather it absorbs all of humanity because, as a fragment of the whole, a person must carry everything within him.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is talking about: about the discovery of the maximal and absolute individuality of each one, where one person is equivalent to everyone.
[195363]
From a lesson in the Russian 7/10/16

A Man Who Resembles The Creator

Question: I haven’t met a man who resemble the Creator yet. What does the expression “a man who resembles the Creator” mean? In what way does he resemble the Creator? Is there a chance that I can meet such a man?

Answer: A man who yearns to resemble the Creator tries to ascend above his nature and wants to resemble the Creator by bestowing unto others and by loving them.

By being part of a ten, I begin to practice exiting myself. By caring for the friends, I seem to fill them by yearning to be inside them, to push them forward, to fill them, to care for them just like for my little babies. I thus become similar to the Creator.

I ask the Creator: “let me understand, give me power, and let me care for them because then I will be like You. I respect You, I love this attribute of Yours, and I want to be like You. Therefore, give me the chance to care for them, and then I will be close to You.” Basically this is the real prayer of a man.
[195037]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/26/16

New Life #378 – Harmony Between The Sexes Without A Fight

New Life #378 – Harmony Between The Sexes Without A Fight
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

What has gone wrong with the way women function in a global world? What special force is there in a woman and how can she naturally manage in the world once she receives the right education?

The approach of fighting for women’s rights is wrong. It leads to conflicts. This isn’t a female approach but a masculine one. Who is in control at home? The woman is. Why? Because she serves, loves, and connects everyone. Nature has intended a greater role for the woman than the one she fills today; she has to lead the change. The female way to attain something is by agreement and acceptance, not by force. If women managed the world, there would be no wars. Today we all need to be re-educated.

A woman is the driving force in the transition to a new integral world. She has to come out of her hiding place and lead things. It is not a revolution by physical force but by integral education, by educating to connect and to accept. Will there be differences in the wages of men and women in an integral world as we see today? A modern woman needs to feel that she is responsible for the whole world, like a mother.

Tomorrow is the tomorrow of women, because a woman is a home and today our planet is everyone’s home.
[154537]
From KabTV’s “New Life #378 – Harmony Between The Sexes Without A Fights,” 5/20/14

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How Can We Achieve A Sense Of Balance?

Question: If the world is global, the crisis is everywhere, and we experience these states internally, how can we hold on to the forces of adhesion and rejection at the same time in order to keep a sense of balance?

Answer: First, you should understand you are in a state in which you have one force, an egoistic force, an egoistic attraction, and you need another force to balance it, which is the force of rejection.

You cannot reject what is harmful to you. The ego forces you to draw everything that seems good in your direction, but you cannot really examine what is bad and what is good for you.

Therefore, all of our work comes down to acquiring an additional force. It is written, “I have created the evil inclination.” The evil is the ego that is in us from the start, while the good is not inside us.

We can draw the good force through our desire so that it will exist inside us by our own freewill. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah, discovered by First Man almost 6,000 years ago, is for, and it tells us how to do it.
[195368]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/10/16

The Secret Of Immortality Of The Jewish People, Part 2

Question: Is it correct to say that a Jew is a symbol of eternity and because of this, these people survived all the trials that fell to their lot and will live forever?

Answer: Any person can become a Jew if he wants to join us. It doesn’t matter what nationality he is and what color of skin he has.

A Jew is something above nature. The Jew is an ideology of rising above our egoistic nature and connecting with others. A person wishing to achieve unity of people (Yichud) and to live in it is called a Jew (Yehudi). Therefore, after becoming a Jew, a person loses all the characteristics of this world, such as nationality and past relationships; he or she becomes a new person.

Question: Is there a guarantee of eternal life to everyone who aspires to unity?

Answer: Everyone who works according to the original method of Kabbalah, using original sources, and who achieves unity, reveals within himself a connection with the upper force that is called the Creator (Boreh), which means “come and see” (Bo-Reh). And in fact, we do “come” to a state and achieve revelation and “see” in it.

Then we are really called the Jews, the people of the Creator, because by uniting between us we provide a vessel for the upper force where it can connect with us. This way we begin to feel our unity and connection with the Creator. This is called the attainment of the upper world.

Question: Why does the principle of unity that is the basis of the Jewish people protect them and prevents them from disappearing?

Answer: Our forefathers, the founders of the Jewish people, began this process. They rose above earthly egoism and preferred unity above separation. Through all generations they aspired to unity, and this made them similar to the Creator; the Upper Light that influenced them was stronger or weaker depending on the importance of unity to them.

We can’t separate the fate of the nation from its purpose, its responsibility to achieve full and universal unity. At the time when they aspired to unity, their fate was good, and as soon as they were destroying this unity, they fell immediately and suffered from enemy attacks. Their lives became terrible.

The history of the Jewish people goes back almost 6,000 years, from the “first man” Adam who was first to reveal this secret and to start talking about unity and connection. It is clear that throughout their entire history, the fate of the Jewish people depended completely on their unity.

Since this nation always aspired to connection and was connected with the upper force, it was called eternal and passed through centuries. At the same time, it also suffered much more than all other nations. Although this nation is immortal, it receives blows all the time.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains this by the fact that at any time in their history that the Jewish people weren’t aspiring to unity and drawing the Reforming Light hard enough; therefore, the Light wasn’t strong enough to correct them and dwell in them.
[195290]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/13/16

Bring Up A Man

Question: If a father wants to give a child an example of advancement toward and longing for spirituality, what must he do? In what way can he express spirituality?

Answer: A person who aspires for spirituality goes through two stages:

1. He learns about the structure of the world and discovers that the world is a closed integral system, as all of science and research have also verified.
2. He understands that the role of a person is to match himself to the general integral world.

What this means is that a person who longs for spirituality shows how important it is to take himself out of the state that is opposite to nature and bring himself to a state of full connection with it, similarity to it.

This desire for connection with all parts of creation, to mutual harmonious cooperation with nature, to be similar to it, is called “raising a man.”
[194907]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/26/16

European Paradise

Comment: On the one hand, the standard of living in Europea is high with the security of social support. On the other hand, the level of social problems is also very high. People don’t feel satisfied with their lives. There is a feeling that we have created a “paradise” in which everyone suffers. There is complete disonance.

My Comment: You can feed, clothe, put to bed, cover, and put the “beastly” physical body to sleep, but the Adam (man) in you, within this beast, will not be able to be clothed, fed, put to bed, and surely will not go to sleep! Like a little child doesn’t want to go to bed and doesn’t want to sleep, a person looks at his life and sees that there is no meaning in it, he no longer gets any satisfaction from anything.

Question: People used to be satisfied and now they aren’t?

Answer: Egoism grew! What can be done? People have grown.

If we read books that were written 50 years ago or see movies that were filmed then, we not only think of them as naïve people, but completely different. Immense changes have happened with humanity!

Europe is in the opposition between material abundance and inner emptiness. This is the problem of our times, a terrible paradox that leads to depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction.

Until people discover the answer to the question about the meaning of life, nothing will be good. This is the main question. Most Europeans still don’t clearly understand things are bad for them, what is eating them, but the question is coming up more and more clearly for everyone.

Nature is moving us toward a scream, “Why is all this happening to me?!” Later, specifically thanks to the suffering, when we want to attain the essence of nature, then the meaning of life will be revealed.

Question: Does this mean that it is possible to return to the “paradise” they built there?

Answer: No. When they built the bourgeois paradise, they internally rose above it, queries became different. They are no longer satisfied.

Question: Does that mean that paradise on Earth is impossible?

Answer: No. If we were to stop human development, the development of his internal desires, they would not grow qualitatively, then everything would be fine. But we take only their quantitative growth into account.

More and more material fulfillment has been given to people, but this is not what they need. They already want loftier things, and they don’t exist. So we have to give them what they want now, and this is the meaning of life.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 9/19/16

Praying For The Creator

Question: What is “a prayer for the Creator?”

Answer: To pray for the Creator means to do everything with the purpose of giving Him the opportunity to be revealed within the creatures. This is what He wishes and the reason He created a single desire, i.e., the entire universe.
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From the Convention In Moscow, Day One 5/2/16, Lesson 3

Advancing Wisely

Question: Before coming to the wisdom of Kabbalah, I felt totally indifferent. I had no desire to live and I could hardly crawl through life. Can this happen again?

Answer: You didn’t have a group at the time; you didn’t have the support of the group; you had no method and no influence of the Upper Light, and so it isn’t the same thing.

Baal HaSulam refers quite often to the fact that it is impossible to enter the upper worldunless you are using the method of Kabbalah.

This method wasn’t invented artificially. Kabbalists who transcended to the upper world have included their spiritual experience, described it, and thus enable us to advance more wisely by taking steps that we understand better.
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New Life #377 – The Female Approach To A Real Change

New Life #377 – The Female Approach To A Real Change
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

What is the man’s place in complementing a woman who adapts to the integral world, and how can we carry it out it in society by education?

Women’s organizations that operate in an agressive male-like manner to achieve equal rights will not accomplish their goal. It is impossible to equalize what nature has differentiated. We have to find a way to reconcillation between the sexes. Aggressive women are successful in a competitive egoistic society,  but this is not exercising the female force.

The nature of the change we need today: in the past the strong prevailed, but today the one who is positively connected to others prevails. The fact that the world has become integrated makes it very difficult for the men, who cannot act in this network.

A woman, on the other hand, is a home, a family, connection, giving birth; she can annul herself for others and complement them. We need a transformation in the heart and mind of every person. We have to realize that the world is integrated and that we depend on each other. Women will digest this change in our perception more easily and thus will lead the change.

The change will start with learning. When we all learn where we are headed, both men and women, then we will act. Managing the change will be in combining the male and the female forces. The feminine demands and the masculine fulfills. The right mutual complementation will lead the world to peace and wholeness, without any distortions and pressures, to perfection.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #377 – The Female Approach To A Real Change,” 5/20/14

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Depression Is Getting Younger

In the News (Independent): “A one-year-old boy was prescribed antidepressants by the NHS in Scotland, as prescriptions for the drugs soared across the UK. …

“The figures also showed the most common age group for antidepressants to be prescribed was for those aged between 14 and 17, and that girls were more likely to be given the medication than boys. …

“Though NHS guidelines state that under 18s should not be prescribed antidepressants, over 100,000 prescriptions a year are given to teenagers, according to the Daily Telegraph.”

My Comment: Egoism is growing and demands solutions; there are no answers. The question of the meaning of life is consciously or unconsciously felt all the time on the background of what is happening, but other than suppressing, pushing the issue before us…far away.
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“Fighting Symptoms”

In the News (vz.ru): “You can carry out any number of counter-insurgency operations against the Taliban, ISIS or other ‘scapegoats’, but actually it does not change and will be only a struggle with the symptoms of the disease rather than its cause.

“Breeding lone terrorists and Islamic and narco-states are the consequences of the elites of the developed world’s policy toward its neighbors.

“In the US and the EU – the center of the capitalist world – there has been no war for about 70 years, but in the peripherals – the rest of the world – they are blazing with enviable regularity.

“Blazing because it is profitable and allows them to dump their problems in a third world country, pillaging them and supporting their world at home.

“Simply put, the stability of their society is due to the fact that by exploiting, mainly by economic methods, the rest of the planet, the unnecessary resources can be directed to the maintenance of peace and luxury consumption of their inhabitants.

“So, unfortunately, the terrorist attacks in developed countries won’t end as long as the US and EU elite do not revise the global political economy model and make it more equitable. …

“However, the US and the EU will not change their policy, since, despite the attacks, the profits from the exploitation of the world more than exceed the losses from the terrorists.

“Because regular attacks, in their understanding, is a fair fee for the well-being as their own, and society. …

“The only way to defeat terrorism is to make a fairer world order and to stop the fierce exploitation of the Third World with the periodic destruction of their territory.”

My Comment: The conclusion is incorrect because it is not a question of economic problems and their solution, and the religious conquest of Europe and the world. It is necessary to know the program of development of humanity, which Kabbalah explains, and how we can optimally implement it (by Achishena – hastening time).
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