I Don’t Want To Give Anything

Question: If my only desire is to receive pleasure egoistically, how can I want to give someone anything? I feel that it is unpleasant, and I don’t receive any pleasure from it.

Answer: The desire to give, to bestow, suddenly emerges in you under the influence of the Upper Light.

Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah systematically awakens and summons the Light that Reforms, which is called the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), to a student.

This Light gradually change us; it gives us such a sensation of properties that we suddenly begin to be willing to pass through ourselves and work for the other.

A person suddenly feels these types of attributes. He didn’t even know about them before, and suddenly they are born and develop in him. This happens because this is how the Upper Light works.

We don’t know anything about this. It is like a little child who runs and hops around, shouting, crying, feeling happy, and doing anything his body demands, and thus eventually develops. We are the same.

We simply need to be in this system, and thus we will develop.
[196984]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/28/16

A System That Protects From The Upper Light

Question: How important is it to divide the pleasure that is received from the Creator into portions? After all, it is no secret that if you spend a lot of time in the sun, you can get burned and not tanned.

Answer: First, we need to prepare our desire for the right contact. Accordingly, we must first reject all pleasure, restricting (Tzimtzum)it and not allowing it to enter into us.

Then we must build a screen (Masach) that will send the pleasure back. Only after that will it become possible to come in contact with it and gradually begin to receive pleasure in measured amounts called Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida, and so forth.

Everything comes gradually. To the degree that we build a resistance within us called a screen, we can discover the pleasure that is found between us. Above us, there is a system that makes it possible for the Upper Light to reach us only in the same amount that a particular protective system exists within us called a Masach.

Question: How do the brain and nerves of a Kabbalist withstand the feeling of pleasure that is millions of times greater than the pleasure of an ordinary person? Is this not reflected mentally?

Answer: I tdoes not affect the mind because a system exists that protects everything and does not allow the person to be harmed by the Upper Light in any way. What is called a Pulsa de Nura (light shock) is just something to “horror story.” So don’t worry, nothing will happen; no one has ever been harmed by the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is only those who hate it who intentionally disseminate rumors like this.
[196697]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/28/16

A Black Point In The Infinite Light

Question: What is the point that all the Upper Light stems from?

Answer: A black point is the only thing that was created by the Creator in the infinite Light. It is called a desire.

This point is not the egoism, but only its rudiment, something that is different from the Light. It is a point from which our development begins.

Question: What does the writing of black letters on a white background mean?

Answer: The white background is associated with the Light and the black is our desire. Therefore, when we draw lines, we represent what our desires look like on the background of the white Light, and what distinguishes them from the Creator’s altruistic attributes.
[196798]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/17/16

New Life #782 – Reading The Torah

New Life #782 – Reading The Torah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

What is the inner meaning of what is said in the Torah, what do the weekly portions represent, and why do we begin to read the Torah every year from the beginning?

The Torah is the general law of nature which explains how to behave regarding the higher operating system.

Main points:

• Reality is built in strata, and there is a higher system that manages it with an operating system called Torah.
• Moses was the first to describe it comprehensively and he gave the Torah to the people of Israel. The Torah was written in a coded language.
• The entire Torah talks about how we must be balanced in relation to the forces that act upon us. It explains how a person develops further and further toward complete balance.
• There is the Torah we read every week that is divided into portions and there is the hidden Torah. With the help of the hidden Torah, a person can discover the Creator, the general force that is operating in reality.
• There is an external maintenance of the laws of the Torah and there is its inner maintenance, which is expressed in the correction of man’s relationships to others. A person knows that he is in true balance when he acts for the benefit of others.
• There is an external reading of the Torah and there is an internal reading: the discovery of the Torah each time on a new level.
• Reading the Torah is a discovery of the higher system, making it possible to discover the Creator through it.
• On every spiritual level, a person must reach an attainment of a deeper understanding of what it reveals.
• The seven days are seven forces: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut.
• “And the heavens and earth were finished….” (Genesis 2:1) A balance between the positive force and the negative force brings a person to a state that is called Shabbat.
• The yearly reading of the Torah represents a new level of discovery of the hidden reality until its complete discovery.
• In the final point of balance, we see “from one end of the world to the other,” the full reconciliation between the opposing forces of nature.
• To read the Torah means discovering the program of the world and achieving a whole and eternal state.
  [195671]
  From KabTV’s “New Life #782 – Reading The Torah,” 10/25/16

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Loving By Way Of The Creator

Question: What does “Loving by way of the Creator” mean?

Answer: Loving by way of the Creator means that the Upper Light(Surrounding Light) is illuminating my egoism, awakening the characteristic of bestowal in me, and I want to convey this from my egoism to others, to everyone.

In this case, the Upper Light travels through me and fills me according to how much I convey it to others.

If I don’t convey it to others, I don’t receive because then I become a “plug” in the path of the Light. The principle is very simple, by conveying to others, I myself receive. The problem in our world is that we don’t feel that this is possible.

If I study in a group according to the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah, then the Upper Light illuminates me in any state. This Upper Light begins to awaken particular feelings, particular connections, in me. I build a model of the Creator within me, and I begin to feel the whole world according to this model that I build within myself.

I cannot feel the entire universe and all the worlds in general, but I can build this within me. What follows from this is that I feel all of creation. All of this is done under the influence of the Upper Light (Surrounding Light).

We just need to carry out the advice of the Kabbalists. This is very simple: you must be with a group of friends and organize a small community of brothers with them, even if it is just a few people, it doesn’t have to be ten. And you must study according to the Kabbalistic sources. Under these conditions, the Surrounding Light will shine on you. You will not feel it, but you will feel how you are changed. You will begin to feel your connection with the Light, a connection with humanity, through this small group, and ultimately everything will turn out.
[196988]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/28/16

“Sandwich” With The Creator

Torah, Deuteronomy 12:22: But as the deer and the gazelle are eaten, so may you eat them; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of them.

The changing states of clean and unclean are inherent in every person because we are always in the process of correction from the complete shattering that happened at the beginning of creation to the complete correction that will be at the end.

Therefore, all my states, both clean and unclean, I must bring to complete unity. Moreover, they work simultaneously. As it is written, “Love will cover all transgressions,” meaning the transgressions remain and love covers them.

“Unclean” is the one who undergoes the period of purification. We don’t in any way destroy the previous unclean states, but we form the clean ones above them and they together lead us to contact with the Creator, which is located between them as a filling between two slices of a sandwich. The filling is the feeling of the Creator, the contact with Him, and two slices of bread are clean and unclean states.

Question: Should the feeling of the unclean state come immediately after we reach the clean state?

Answer: Of course! In order to continue correction! We must maintain both states constantly changing, as in a wheel. Therefore, our advancement is called Ofanim(“Ofen” means wheel). This is how we advance: what is at the bottom rises to the top, and whatever is at the top falls to the bottom. Therefore, there is nothing that wouldn’t simultaneously rise and fall.

A person must understand that both good and bad states, night and day, are connected together. And one works in order to make them both directed to the connection. Then it turns out that “the unclean and the clean alike may eat of them.”
[196958]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/6/16

New America + Trump, Part 2

Question: How could all the predictions about the outcome of the presidential elections in the US be so wrong? After all, they always came true before.

Answer: The fact is that never before was there a situation when society underwent such radical changes. This is a real crisisbecause Obama and Clinton prepared an upheaval toward fundamentalism. They wanted to make the US their fiefdom and become dictators in it.

Obama had full power over everyone. Quietly and without a fuss, he wanted to turn the US into a Muslim country. And when this condirion had become almost irreversible, the coup occurred during the elections. It is not surprising that it wasn’t foreseen by any forecast bureau, because in their blindness, they see only what suits and and is familiar to them. The world must advance toward the general correction. They were let down by ignorance of the internal program that humanity is going through.

Question: Obama supporters say the opposite, that he was heading toward pluralism and democracy, opening doors to immigrants. Why do you think that he was moving in the direction of radical Islam?

Answer: If we don’t move toward the common unity by conducting the necessary training and building the right foundation, then entry of foreigners should not be allowed. If I am not ready to live with you in the same apartment, we shouldn’t move in together, otherwise we’ll become the worst enemies.

Until that happens, we’re friends. And when you move into my apartment, after a while we begin to hate each other. So why would we move in together and turn from friends into enemies?

Therefore, preliminary training and education are necessary, and Europe is also lacking it. If we don’t do it and open up the country for mass immigration, we doom it for big problems, coups, and violence. It will be scary to go outside because the streets will be filled with people that hate each other by nature. And if they are not educated properly they will destroy each other. This isn’t the path of correction.

Question: It isn’t clear how Trump can be closer to the correction with his racist statements regarding Mexicans and threats to deport immigrants?

Answer: Imagine that you suddenly declare that you are going to live with me and demand half of my house. I, as a sensible person who understands your and my natures and knows that I can’t stand strangers in the house, ask you not to do it. Now we are friends and visit each other, observing a safe distance and keeping peace.

Peace is possible in two cases: either we keep at a distance from each other or we receive an education that allows us to get close and even connect, thus becoming friends that internally feel their dependence on each other and need for each other. I feel that I need you to live because by connecting with you I can reach the higher goal. So I should get closer to you.

This interest should be given to a person, but it wasn’t done in America. They allowed a few million Muslim immigrants to enter, who have already begun to cause problems across the country. And meanwhile ,the flow of immigrants continues and a real explosion is brewing.
[197205]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/10/16

The Origin Of Names

Question: According to the Torah, Adam HaRishon gave different names to the animals and the birds. What is the meaning of giving a name according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: This means that Adam established a connection between the upper root of every phenomenon and its outcome in our world, and gave names to all the objects according to their spiritual origin.

The book The Angel Raziel, which Adam wrote according to the alphabet he discovered, can be bought in any bookstore now. However, I doubt whether we will understand anything, because it is written from the precise perception of the upper management.

Twenty generations after Adam, another Kabbalist, Abraham, wrote the book Sefer Yetzira (Book of Creation), again, only by looking at the spiritual root, and his book also seems to be encoded, even though the language seems very clear. Then the descent of the generations began and the Kabbalists who followed Abraham, his students, began to write differently. They looked at the corporeal branches and not at the spiritual roots. Moses, for example, wrote the Torah according to the way it is depicted in our world.

All the generations are advancing toward a spiritual decent. On the one hand, we can say that Moses was on a lower spiritual level than Abraham, but on the other hand, he left us and did much more for us, because we can use his writings and through understanding their branches, we yearn for the roots. This means that Moses’ book is much more important for us than Adam’s book.
[196742]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/17/16

The Fukushima Disaster

Question: Out of all nuclear disasters, the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused the greatest harm to humanity, because it is located on the sea at the exit to the Pacific Ocean and continues to release three hundred tons of radioactive materials into its water on a daily basis.

Fixing the leak is not possible for either robots or people due to the high temperature.

Will humanity continue to live with breaking nuclear plants and changing ecology?

Answer: We have built hundreds of nuclear power plants in the world that will gradually break down or be destroyed by bombing. It doesn’t even require atomic bombs, it is enough to drop one simple bomb on the nuclear reactor and that’s it.

Question: How long can we live with this?!

Answer: How much longer does humanity have to live? A person only needs to correct his nature and through this he will rise to a new dimension.

Everything is directed only to convince us that there is no solution for our lives in this world. For example, I know that I will die after some time. So what? I just submit to fate and nothing more. It is the same for humanity.

What is all this for? In order to plunge us into a state of fear and the inevitability of obeying the development program of nature that will force us to rise above our nature.

This will really make us discover the program of creation. A person won’t be allowed to die, even if he wants to, “Death is better than this life!” You ask for mercy for yourself, but the Creator is stiff-necked, He won’t let you die.

I am absolutely serious. Humanity itself will choose the path of correction or it will have to be led to this path with the help of suffering.

It means it is necessary to compel humanity to want, against its nature, to rise above the egoism and to work only with the intention to bestow. After all, with the slightest contact with egoism you feel terrible suffering and run away from it.

Egoism is called, “help against you.” It tells you: “Get out of me as soon as possible!” In other words, it will push a person out, like a pit out of a cherry. This is what we are advancing to.

Or it can be mitigated by self-awareness. Let’s acknowledge the program of nature, its inevitability, its purpose, its bright future, and try to realize it, but only by the implementation of Kabbalah.

This is a kind way. It is possible. Even if we don’t choose to use the wisdom of Kabbalah ourselves, we will still reach it, but after great suffering.
[195211]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/5/16

New Life #781 – Jewish Culture: Myths About Studying Torah

New Life #781 – Jewish Culture: Myths About Studying Torah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

How does studying the Torah protect the people of Israel? Is the Torah meant only for Jews? Why is there a separation between men and women at the time of study?

A Yehudi (Jew) is someone who yearns for Yichud (union), for oneness. That is why it is said that studying the Torah is meant for Jews. It is also said that the Torah protects the people of Israel. This is referring to the people who want the ability to connect.

Main points:

• In general, people don’t feel that they hate others, but when they try to get closer to others, this is what they discover.
• In contrast, those who are in a group that studies the wisdom of Kabbalah are actively trying to be as if they are one, like a centipede with one mind and one heart. To the degree that we connect, we receive Light, meaning a special power that develops new intellectual and emotional capabilities. To realize this requires at least ten people who want to connect (men separately and women separately). The concept of a Minyan comes from here.
• A person who observes a group of Kabbalists cannot understand what they are feeling. That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is also called the hidden wisdom.
• Maintaining the 613 Mitzvot (commandments) means correcting the 613 egoistic desires that are inherent in us. All the customs of Judaism actually signify the spiritual actions that we must carry out to correct the relationships between us. For instance, hand washing signifies cleansing our absorptive Kli from an intention of taking from others for ourselves.
• The correct reading of sacred writings written by those with spiritual attainment can happen only through group study under the guidance of a teacher of Kabbalah.
• The joint reading of books of Kabbalah by a group must be done with texts that were written by those who had spiritual attainment.
• In our era, the secular public is closer to recognition of the true Torah, the wisdom of Kabbalah, as opposed to the religious community, which is satisfied with its form of life.
• The wisdom of Kabbalah will add to the secular public an awareness of the goal of existence and a connection to eternity and wholeness.
  [195578]
  From KabTV’s “New Life #781 – Jewish Culture: Myths About Studying Torah,” 10/20/16

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New Life #780 – The Study of Torah Is Not What You Thought

New Life #780 – The Study of Torah Is Not What You Thought
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

What do we imagine the Torah is beyond historical events, how does it spread before us a deeper and wider reality than the one with which we are familiar, and how does it develop the person who studies it?

The study of Torah is not what is customary in our day and not how we understand it. The Torah is the program of the world. Studying Torah is learning about the world, how it is built and is managed according to a program of development. True study of Torah is not just study; rather, it changes a person and raises him to the summit of reality.
The main points:

• The study of the whole of nature, which is also called Elohim, shows how we can climb toward the highest level.
• Within himself, a person can develop a system that is called a soul, which will be like the entire system of nature.
• The texts that were written in the sacred books were written in codes that must be deciphered. To crack the codes, a person must change himself. He must change his mind and feelings.
• The more a person expands his love for others, the greater the depth he will discover in the Torah. Love of others develops a sense in a person that makes it possible for him to go out of himself and absorb the true reality. A person begins to acquire divine intelligence and feeling, and is connected with eternity and the wholeness of nature.
• To be connected to the power of the Torah requires a teacher who is a Kabbalist and special work within a study group.
• The Torah is the Light that surrounds us. We must study how to place ourselves before it, like sunbathing.
• “And meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8) means that a person must constantly search for how to advance toward love of others.
• I read a book within a group and hope to receive the force of connection and love, which is how the Torah becomes opened for us.
  [195531]
  From KabTV’s “New Life #780 – Jewish Culture: The Study of Torah Is Not What You Thought,” 10/20/16

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New America + Trump, Part 1

Question: A new era begins for America with the new president. Half of America is shocked by the fact that Donald Trump has become the 45th US president. Newspapers headlines are screaming, “The unforeseen has happened!,” “It is impossible to believe!”

All the predictions were wrong; according to all sociological studies, Hillary Clinton should have won. Surprisingly the Republican Trump won in many states that previously supported Democrats. Even these groups of the population that Trump offended with his statements during the election campaign voted for him. The reality contravened all expectations and overturned all predictions. How is it that nobody foresaw such an outcome of the elections?

Answer: It isn’t surprising that no one saw the real picture. The world doesn’t understand what state it is in at all, where it is going, and who promotes it. I didn’t pay attention to all the predictions because all these researchers can’t penetrate the depth of nature and human society and understand what laws act there, how they affect us, and how we need to react correctly.

This entire system is totally concealed from people. No matter who it is—a housewife, an uneducated pauper, or a high-ranked elite—none of them understands the laws of the world. It doesn’t depend on professorial titles or wealth; after all, rich people also don’t see beyond their pocket.

I was very supportive of the candidacy of Trump because this was a real chance for a new America and a new world. I hope that it will happen this way. He has won in style of “Brexit-Plus” by promising to get out of this corrupt, deceitful game that the whole world is involved in. England made the first step in this process, but only regarding European politics, but Trump made a big step in regard to the entire world.

Let us hope that it will happen this way, because it will be a real social and economic revolution, upheaval in relation to illegal immigrants and people who live in the US. The US is a model of the entire world, because it has everything in it.

I think that Trump has an understanding, and there are many powerful and very conservative people behind him that were simply afraid and didn’t believe that such a step was possible. And now they will receive an opportunity to act.

Nobody expected such an outcome of the elections, because in America, apart from those millions that make a noise on the streets of the big cities, there is also provincial, “one-storey” America that is its main part. There live quietly millions of people that don’t go in the streets in demonstrations of protest. However, they understand that their country, their motherland, was taken away from them and is being sold at auction.

America is flooded with Muslim immigrants who have begun to change its face. They say that now there are ten millions of such immigrants in the US, perhaps even more. Obama replaced all the structures, placing radical Islamists in all key positions.

Of course, this is very far from the ideals that existed in America 40-50 years ago. It’s obvious that the United States was going in the wrong direction.
[197146]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/10/16

Approaching The Land Of Israel

The group where a person undergoes correction is a mini-humanity that was formed in the ancient Babylon.  After numerous descents and ascents, the members of the group complete their correction, rise above their egoism, and form a correct society among themselves.

Naturally, at the end of their correction demands become tougher. Therefore the name of the Torah portion “Rehe” (Behold) sounds like a warning, “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse” (Deuteronomy, 11:26).

After all, a person has already been prepared to treat the spiritual elevation seriously, rise to the next level of existence, go beyond the limitations of the material world of objects, and exist in the world of properties.

This is the land of Israel, meaning the world of intentions, qualities, and properties that don’t have any relation to what we feel now. When a person enters it, he gradually loses the sense of the material world and exists in it, as if leaving his body.

He doesn’t perceive the body as something necessary. It just binds him to others that haven’t entered the sensation of the upper state yet. However, in principle, we all will enter it gradually.

Question: Can any of the twelve tribes that approached the land of Israel turn back?

Answer: No. At this stage of the journey it can’t happen.  Everyone is focused on the land of Israel. Still, each of the twelve tribes has its own path, its own technique, and its own means of communication.
[196790]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/6/16

How Can We Respect Lazy Men?

Question: How can we respect men and support them along the spiritual path if they are lazy and afraid of working with their egoism?

Answer: It isn’t the fear of working or laziness but a special kind of resistance that a man feels after the shattering of the general vessel. The shattering occurred as a result of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, which means as result of the incorporation of the female part in it.

The women’s yearning for spirituality is much greater than that of the men, but this does not mean in any way that we should judge the men unfavourably for not having the same yearning.

All the desires, all the yearnings, all the conditions, the external and the internal events, everything comes from Above, from the Creator, and so if a person is in a state in which the only thing that interests him is a football game and a beer, there is no reason to treat him with less respect than a person who yearns for the wisdom of Kabbalah with all his might.

The two states are given by the Creator, and if the Creator gave a football fan the same desire as a person who yearns for the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is no knowing how he would cope with and fulfill this desire; he could in fact be much better at it. We have no right to judge or to classify people.

We must tie everything that happens to the Creator, and so we have to relate to everyone equally, because if we don’t, we are using our ego and want to change people.
[195877]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/26/16

How To Get Absolute Pleasure

Question: Can pleasure come only through suffering?

Answer: There is no suffering. We must try in every moment of our lives to attain the absolute pleasure that the Creator wants to give us. It is only necessary to understand how to do this.

This technique is called the wisdom of Kabbalah, the wisdom of how to get the absolute and immense pleasure that exists around us, called the Upper Light.

We must resemble the Upper Light. This becomes possible when we want to change our desires that are opposite to the Upper Light and transform them into desires to bestow, to emanate, just like it does. Then we will be like it. To the degree that we resemble it, the Upper Light will begin to fill us and we will feel it and an eternal and perfect state within us.
[196634]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/28/16

Parents And Children: Mutual Concern

Question: How does the wisdom of Kabbalah relate to the role of the mother and her influence on the adult life of a person?

Answer: In the Torah it is said that a child must leave his parents and adhere to his wife, establish a family with her, and have his own children.

The parents must not cause trouble for their children or intervene in their lives. There is no other way. Rabash used to say: the best thing in relationships with children is to open the pocket and not say a word.

It is up to us to help them as much as possible and to let them take care of themselves without hindering their freedom of choice.

According to the Torah, the role of the child regarding his parents is to care for them to the end of their days. He must do this to the degree that it is possible because his mother granted him life and he will never be able to pay back his debt to her.

There is no doubt that caring for parents is an obligation of adult children because this is part of their correction.
[195858]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/9/16