The Point Of Merging With The Ten

The entrance to spirituality takes place through the annulment of the desire to enjoy, of an evil principle. But the desire itself cannot be cancelled. One only cancels the egoistic use of the desire with the intention for one’s own sake. To do this, one has to hold onto a small spiritual spark placed in a person in order to build oneself on its basis and transfer it to the first spiritual step across the barrier (Machsom), a tiny hole.

There is a parable about a king who wished to move his treasury to another place, and to do this, he gave a coin to every subject so that they would carry it and not yield to the temptation to steal. In the same way a person transfers himself, his great desire to enjoy, in portions. First of all, he transfers the spark, declares his affiliation and loyalty to the king, and merges with Him at one point.

We can already feel this point because we drew the reforming light, organized tens, and we understand what it means to annul yourself in the group, the friends, and accordingly, to the Creator. If we transfer our point from one world to the next in order to be loyal to the king at least at one point, then we can gradually transfer our other desires through the same narrow pipeline along the same path. This is how we will clean these desires from their selfish intent and add to them the intention to bestow.

And this is how we move from world to world: from a level below the border of the spiritual world (Lo Lishma), to a step higher than the Machsom, to Lishma.¹

In every situation, in every place, I have to try to see that I prefer myself to everything outside of me. The Creator and the Shechina are outside of me, and therefore, I have to prefer the external to myself. The external is my group, the closest circle of people I work with, or a wider circle—the world Kabbalistic group or even the whole of humanity and the whole of reality. The size of the circle depends on my attitude, but the main thing is to replace your “I” with what is outside of you.

The ten becomes more important to me than myself. I suddenly feel that I separate from my “I” as if it does not exist, and I live inside my friends. This means that I enter as a fetus into the upper one.²

The border to the spiritual world, the Machsom, is the point of me merging with the ten. Willingness to attach to the friends and shift the importance from yourself to them, dissolving into them and losing your “I” means crossing the Machsom. Separation from one’s “I” and inclusion in the ten is a passage to the Machsom. Then I begin to feel what the property of bestowal is, and within this relationship I feel the higher spiritual world. This is already a very serious understanding that to enter spirituality one does not need to “break through the Machsom,” but to break oneself.³

One could ask, how is my health associated with the group? But I can appeal to the Creator only through my connection with the group because I appeal to the property of bestowal that I reveal between us and ask for additional bestowal. After all, all the problems, including health, are a consequence of a lack of bestowal, of light. Therefore, first of all, I have to go to the place where I can realize my request.

A disease is a kind of a defect in our connection. It is possible to correct the defect only by correcting our connection. The more I strengthen the relationship with my friends, the more I pray and ask for it, the more I sanctify this place and the disease goes away.

The Creator’s worker does not accept disease with humility, but perceives it as a sign of the need for correction. What is the Creator sending the disease for? In order for me to reach a special connection with the group and fix this problem.

I only cancel my egoism because the Creator shows me a flawed place in it, and it is time to correct it. A disease is a sign indicating a flaw. Therefore, I try to join the group more and ask the reforming light to give me more strength to communicate with my friends, and I heal this way.

Any illness or loss of health and money is corrected only within the group. There is nothing else to correct except for the group, the common soul of Adam HaRishon because everything emanates from it. Until the very end of correction, we eliminate the disconnection between the friends in the ten. There is no other place to work; we reveal the damage and correct it.⁴
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/19, Annulment As A Condition for the First Spiritual Degree (Preparation for the Convention in North America Convention 2019)

New Life #1105 – Life On The Net

New Life #1105 – Life on the Net
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

In the ideal network, everyone is included and our good relationships create a ball of love, but the human ego opposes this. The gap between our natural connection and the egoistic attitude determines our fate. Spiritual growth occurs when we correct our attitude through a device called the soul and impact the network in a positive way. The peak of development is to seize the entire net, reaching the level of God.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1105 – Life on the Net,” 3/19/19

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“Shavuot: Brightening Israel And The Jewish People” (The Times Of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “Shavuot: Brightening Israel and the Jewish People”

“Israel is all messed up with their election… They ought to get their act together,” said President Trump in relation to the political uncertainty in this country going to the polls for a second time this year. He is right, but it’s just a symptom of the wider problem of the deeply fragmented Israeli society that lacks a common vision about its future, a state of division also existent within American Jewry, as well as between Israel and the Diaspora. The timing of Shavuot and all it represents could not be more relevant. The holiday symbolizes the reception of the guidebook for the spiritual correction of our people, the receiving of the Torah, or in other words, the way out of the mess.

What was actually given to us at Mount Sinai? The Torah is not a chronicle about past events. On the contrary, it describes the seminal moment when our future becomes decided, when a clear answer becomes required from all of us: Are we ready to accept mutual guarantee (Arvut) as the law of life? Exactly this is the Torah—instruction on how to correct our shattered relations and instead become guarantors for each other by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

This is precisely the goal for which the Torah was given to us. However, we must constantly renew our state of worthiness for reception of the Torah by scaling the “mountain of hatred” (Sinah), the roar of the storm raging inside us. To do this, we must unite, connect with each other, become “as one man with one heart” and stand at the foot of the mountain. In other words, we must fully comprehend that we are given very important and strict conditions under which we must work with all diligence and ever-increasing unity.

Shavuot, like all Jewish holidays, carries a call to action. The holiday is bright. It’s full of whiteness and light, but the call to action is quite complicated to carry out. We bump into each other; people are strangled by indifference, burned with anger toward those with different opinions than their own. We are in a desert of barren and soulless relationships. If we would suddenly recognize how egoism tears us to pieces, if we would try to connect into one integral body and face our seemingly insurmountable internal split, we would then clearly realize how desperately we need help.

This state of clarity we presently face is a unique opportunity for unity. Only by increasing our connection will we be able to climb the mountain ever higher, rising above our separation. To rise means to continually increase our connection above all problems, difficulties and disturbances that we encounter in order to help us overcome more and more and to create a vessel in which the light of the Torah will gradually be revealed.

In this moment of recognition coinciding with the Shavuot holiday, we have the opportunity to receive help and instruction, a unifying force that can increase our social health and let us live happily. This is the current moment of evolutionary development we find ourselves in: either we will grow up proactively and start using the Torah according to its purpose, for the sake of unity above all disagreements, or the hard knocks of life will force us to grow up.

The Torah, indeed, is the most powerful tool that we have yet to learn how to use. A person cannot use this tool alone. The problem, however, is that we still cannot work together to put it to use. The Torah will provide us with security and prosperity and will give peace to the world, but first we must get used to the fact that it works between us and not on the individual. Egoism, after all, is revealed in relation to other people.

Therefore, the Torah is meant to connect the person with the environment at any time and level of human development. It reveals to us the force of goodness and love that ties us together. We begin to sense how we must balance our egoism, the evil inclination, wherever it is revealed with the force of goodness, and we can then hold two forces like reins by which we can advance directly to unity and love, letting us lay a solid and bright foundation of our future.

For more about Shavuot >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Michael Laitman and Ami Horowitz Talk About Anti-Semitism

Know The Essence Of Things Through Letters

Question: What does it mean to know the essence of things through letters?

Answer: First, it is necessary to understand each letter, what elements it consists of.
Without going deeply into the details, each letter is a certain combination of the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim, receiving and giving, their variation and mutual alignment between each other.

In other words, how much can I give in order to receive something? Or vice versa, how can I receive and what should I give for it? These are different things, although they seem the same. It depends on what is ahead.

Secondly, letters cannot arbitrarily follow one after the other. There are letters that cannot stand together, they must have a certain sequence.

Letters represent light. According to the structure of the spiritual system, there are five Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, and Malchut. Until the middle of Bina, there are no letters, only abstract light.

Starting from the middle of Bina and on, the upper light enters the Kelim (vessels), desires. Therefore, there are nine letters in the lower part of Bina, nine in ZA, and four in Malchut, twenty-two letters in total.

They cannot be more or less because that is the number of Sefirot from Bina to Malchut, i.e., each Sephira corresponds to a certain letter. Moreover, at different levels Sefirot can be denoted by different letters. There are also five additional letters (Manzepach), which are placed at the end of words to complete the entire development from top to bottom.

According to Gematria (the numerical value of the letters), the first nine letters from Alephto Tet are single unites, from Yod to Tzadik tens, and the last four letters Kuf, Reish, Shin, and Tav represent hundreds.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/6/19

Thought Is The Greatest Force

Question: Is it possible to measure a thought in our world? Is it an electromagnetic wave or something else?

Answer: Our thoughts are absolutely immaterial. Naturally, they give some material depiction in us. We can measure different potentials with the help of brain encephalograms, etc., but these are not thoughts themselves but rather a consequence of material carriers that react thus when something happens in them.

Thought is the greatest force with which you can overturn the entire world. It is above our world, but it descends here as a control signal.

Question: Does it mean that what is most invisible is the most powerful?

Answer: Definitely. For example, what is there to see in an atomic bomb? A kilogram of some matter. What happens to it when it explodes? If you connect opposite elements with each other, say, plus and minus, what energy do you get?!

Question: Can we compare this released energy to a thought?

Answer: No, thought is much stronger because it is not limited by distance and force. Everything depends only on the one who uses it and the way he uses it.

Question: Can the power of thought be negative? For example, is an evil eye also a thought?

Answer: Yes, these are very harmful thoughts that must not be used, but they do exist.

Question: We say that spirituality is detached from corporeality. But even though a thought is not material, it nevertheless affects us. Is this a one-way influence?

Answer: No. By saying that spirituality does not affect corporeality, we mean something completely different. However, it is spirituality that controls corporeality. What else can control matter if not the spirit?

Question: Does it mean that immaterial thoughts control corporeality?

Answer: Of course. If we knew how much we spoil the world with our thoughts, I cannot even imagine what we would do! Look in what physical conditions people exist and how much their bodies suffer! It is only because of our evil thoughts.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/3/19

New Life #1104 – The Revelation At Mount Sinai, Part 2

New Life #1104 – The Revelation at Mount Sinai, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

At Mount Sinai, the people bow down to the power of connection above a mountain of hatred that is revealed between them. They receive the Ten Commandments, which provides a method of getting along with one another as one man with one heart despite the growing hatred. The condition to receiving the Torah is to agree to be a “zero” so the power of good would be in control. God is found in the one heart that includes them all because God is the attribute of love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1104 – The Revelation at Mount Sinai, Part 2,” 3/19/19

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Shavuot: The Great, Special Holiday of “Receiving The Torah”

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 6/4/19

The light we draw from the Torah is called “the light that reforms.” It provides us with “the good inclination” so we can reveal the upper world and our higher spiritual life.

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What Is Predetermined For A Person?

Question: Could it be that suffering or punishment is predetermined for a person and one could cancel them with the help of the light of Kabbalah?

Answer: It is not suffering and punishment that are predetermined for each person, but the specific way forward, which precedes from the point of one’s soul. This way can be either good or evil, but this is a person’s choice.

Question: Ultimately is it beneficial for a person to suffer?

Answer: No one needs to suffer even for a single moment. The Creator is good and desires only good. Therefore, every second of suffering is recorded on our account as going against Him. If we want to go along with Him, we should get rid of the feeling of suffering as quickly as possible.

Question: What develops us more: suffering from lack of necessities or the yearning for pleasure?

Answer: It is only striving forward to the goal, to the truth, not to pleasure nor avoiding suffering.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/18/18

New Life 1106 – The Laws Of The Spiritual Network, Part 2

New Life 1106 – The Laws Of The Spiritual Network, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

In nature there is a special network that connects us, a kind of emotional thread that goes from heart to heart. The spiritual communication network is managed by the power of love and connection. It follows the rules of love. These rules are aimed at bringing the inanimate, vegetative, and living to mutual completion in the best possible way. Everyone has a special place in the network and a role of his or her own. When you discover the spiritual network of communication between the hearts, you become included in the good power that fills it. When each one is connected to others in bestowal and love, we all attain eternal and complete life. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to discover the network of spiritual connection by working on connection in a group. In the connection, man enjoys the power that fills the system and experiences wholeness and eternity.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1106 – The Laws Of The Spiritual Network, Part 2,” 3/19/19

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What Does The Desire To Study Kabbalah Depend On?

Question: What does the desire to study the wisdom of Kabbalah depend on?

Answer: The aspiration toward the Creator depends on the Reshimo (a spiritual informational record) that is revealed in a person. These are not just questions about the meaning of life and its worthlessness because their answers can be purely corporeal.

A pressing question arises in a person about the essence of existence above only filling himself. It does not matter to me how I live, in what way I fill myself, what I have, and when my life will end. It is important for me to understand its inner meaning! Where did it come from and why it was given to me? What is this phenomenon of life? What does it represent?

When this question emerges in a person, he really needs to discover the purpose of creation. That is, the Creator Himself is unclear. However, if the design, the thought with which everything was created: “With what purpose? Why? For what? How? By Whom?” attracts a person, he comes to the study of Kabbalah and remains in it.

Yet, if he was accidentally lured to Kabbalah by other questions that are less focused on the inner meaning of life, he leaves. Therefore, it is written that a thousand enter a dark room and only one remains and goes out to the Light.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/4/19

New Life #241 – Gratitude And Happiness

New Life #241 – Gratitude and Happiness
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Gratitude for what we have in life brings happiness. Today, the younger generation has everything, so they hardly enjoy anything. A person does not enjoy what he already has since a pleasure is only felt above a need or a lack. If we build a society that will have the love of others within it, we will feel unlimited happiness. In other words, when you love someone, giving becomes an eternal pleasure.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #241 – Gratitude and Happiness,” 10/10/13

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Preparation For The Meeting Between The Creator And Creation

The last generation starts from the whole world transforming into a small village, into one system. By the 21st century, the world reached a state where everyone depends on everyone.

This dependence is unpleasant, burdensome, and is perceived as manipulations of the financial elite over us, but nevertheless, the world has locked itself in one circle and therefore we are called the last generation.

The world has started to operate as one global mechanism, and although this mechanism is corrupt, now we have the opportunity to correct it into a good one. After all, it has already revealed its evil and exposed its bad connections that have entangled us from all sides and acts to our detriment. The system is even getting out of the authorities’ control, a financial blow-up on a global scale is brewing.

After thousands of years of development, the system has finally reached global interdependence. Now a new problem has emerged: how can we correct ourselves; it is impossible to tolerate it any longer. Egoism is becoming so global that it leaves us no hope for the future.

If we understand this, feel it, and seriously accept our mission, we must correct ourselves as soon as possible in the ten in order to positively influence the world from this ten. Those who supposedly govern the world are very weak relative to us.

They have no opportunity to influence anything other than the fictitious, artificial systems that they built for themselves: a financial system that has no real basis, an industrial system with 90% of its products that nobody needs, etc.

If we give the world a small illumination from our corrections, it will make huge changes in it for the better. Therefore, we need to know what is happening in the world and include its state in our prayer.

We cannot correct ourselves for our own wellbeing; it would be an egoistic action, and for the good of the Creator, we cannot be corrected as well because He does not need our favors. All correction should be done only in relation to the world.

If we correct the world, we will create a vessel that the Creator can fill and take enjoy. This vessel is the body of the common soul, and we are only the head that must organize this meeting between the Creator (the light) and the desire (the body of the Partzuf). We are in the middle, as a head; this is our mission. Therefore, we cannot but think about the world and absorb its problems.¹

Holocaust Remembrance Day is more relevant today than ever. The situation has turned upside down: today it is more dangerous for a Jew to live in America or Europe than in Israel. After all, he cannot defend himself there. The Jews abroad suffer and are endangered, while growing serenity reigns in Israel. These are the two forms of indifference characteristic for the Jews: being among enemies, they do not feel at risk, and those who are far from danger, outside of the diaspora, are not just indifferent to what is happening there, but in general do not want to hear about it or support the Jews in exile.

The same thing was happening before the Holocaust when none of the Jews around the world intervened in what was happening in Germany. The American Jews did not want to accept a ship with Jews who fled from Europe and sent them back to Germany, directly to Auschwitz. Nothing has changed since then, and today, the Israeli Jews will not worry about Jews in America.

As once American Jews did not take care of European Jews, so Israelis will not worry about Jews in other countries of the world. They will say, “If they feel bad there, let them come here. At least, we will not drive them out like the Americans did in the past.”

When the Nazis came to power in Germany, in the beginning they collaborated with the leaders of the Zionist movement, and all European Jews could have been safely sent to Israel. Germany was ready to contribute to this and promised financial support for those moving to Israel. But Jews did not want to leave Germany to exchange “the most civilized country” with the poor Palestine. Then, the attitude of the Nazis changed to the opposite: the moment the Jews refused to leave Europe and go to Israel, they turned from supporters into anti-Semites. This drastic change was made from above; today we need to learn a lesson from history.

But nowadays, the final correction of the whole world should take place, so the main thing is to take care of our unity and finding a way to escape from one place to another. It all depends on when, in what form, and how fast we will achieve unity. Depending on this, it may be that Jews will not have to look for a shelter in Israel as they flee from other countries.

But there is no doubt that Israel will be the safest place if the people of Israel understand that they must be Yashar – El (straight to the Creator), that is, united. If not, then it may be the same here as all over the world, and even worse. Therefore, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a very relevant symbol for the present.²
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/30/19, Lesson on the Topic “Building The Future Society”

New Life #240 – Happiness And Buddhism

New Life #240 – Happiness and Buddhism
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Buddhism is a belief aimed at calming human suffering by suppressing the egorather than transcending it. It is an individual method that does not deal with the reformation of society or the unification of people. It is the opposite of Abraham’s system, which is based entirely on the revelation of the thought of creation, the realization of the plan of development, the correction of the human ego, and the connection between people through the attainment of the upper force. We must discover the harmony that works in all of nature and flows with it. We do this by learning to connect within a group of people in a circle through a workshop. This is the way to true happiness.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #240 – Happiness and Buddhism,” 10/10/13

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