The Ten —The Only Love

Question: Should the Creator be present in all my relationships? How can I build my relationships to other people who do not have a point in the heart through the Creator?

Answer: A person must build relationships only with those friendswith whom he is in the ten and with no one else. Nothing else is required.

There are billions of people in the world. I do not need to build any relationships with them. Only with my ten, this unique love, and it is what remains. The rest will come into it. I will begin seeing how the world shrinks and becomes included into it.

Question: Does a ten mean ten people, ten biological bodies?

Answer: Yes, for now they are ten biological bodies for me, but later I will stop seeing them this way. We will feel an interaction of desires between us, more egoistic ones, less egoistic ones, desires at certain levels, with certain intentions and so on. Bodies will begin disappearing from our sensations and from our sight.

The quantity will turn from a number of people into desires, and from desires into Sefirot. There will be ten Sefirot, one Partzuf.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/11/17

Resistance To The Wisdom Of Kabbalah, Part 4

Question: How can you object to the opponents of Kabbalah who claim that teaching Kabbalah to the masses is unacceptable because there is a danger of materializing its concepts or, conversely, being in the clouds and fantasizing?

Answer: There is indeed such a danger if we study Kabbalah in the wrong way. But our method is very close to people. In fact, we teach unity and love for our neighbor as for ourselves. Who can object to such a method?

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the true Torah, for it only talks about truth, that is, loving one’s neighbor, which is what the Torah must teach everyone. There is no greater commandment than loving one’s neighbor, for it leads to love for the Creator. This is what we teach, and there is no mysticism in it. And even the spiritual is quite “material” because we are studying how a person should behave here and now in this world.

Question: Is there any claim that the Kabbalah contains a powerful force, like atomic energy, and if we teach it to people who are not ready yet, then they can use these forces to harm themselves and others?

Answer: The Kabbalist does not control the world at will, as the opponents of Kabbalah claim. He does not control anything, but only teaches people how to come to a good union and even love. The goal of Kabbalah is to teach a person love, because we correct the world by a good connection between all.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is a very practical method. Especially people of Israel need it because of anti-Semitism, hatred, and pressure. But all of humanity needs it too. The study of Kabbalah cannot be harmful. Only those who do not know the laws of nature can claim the opposite. That is like scaring a child with a monster so that he will not go out into the street. There is no point in these claims.

People who do not understand this wisdom, disseminate their methods, teach it incorrectly, and cause all the problems related to Kabbalah. There are many kiosks in Tel Aviv where they sell books that they claim are about Kabbalah.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/17, Lesson on the Topic: “The Resistance to Kabbalah”

The Era Of Stress, Part 4

Question: The main thing in the cause of stress is the never-ending desire to receive. But is there something wrong with the desire itself, doesn’t it lie at the very basis of life? Without it, there would be no fulfillment in life.

Answer: What is wrong is not the desire itself, but the attempt to fulfill it at the expense of others. We are in a constant competition with each other throughout our entire lives, measuring our success relative to others.

We all exist in one system and there was a time when we were connected to such an extent that we felt ourselves as if we were one person. There were many people in the world, but egoism was so minimal that we felt no difference between us. That is how it was in primitive societies. Then the desire to receive began to grow and we began to make distinctions: this is my family, that is your family, and over there, that is his family.

Before that happened, people lived as one commune, as if under communism, where everything belongs to everyone equally, like in a tribe. But then we began to distance ourselves from this unity: here is my wife, my children, my cave. Distinctions and divisions started to be made with respect to professions as well, as it is written: “Go and earn from each other.”

Our egoism is growing non-stop. That is why competition began and we started judging who is more successful and who is less. This is how we have been advancing until the present day. But now competition has grown to worldwide proportions because mass media affects us by showing the entire world to us on our television and smartphone screens.

They obligate us to compete with the entire world, showing us how everyone is more successful than we are. It is not surprising that people are gripped by depression.

Question: You think that the desire to be first is bad? But it is responsible for making the individual strive to be successful.

Answer: It is a bad desire. The person needs peace and happiness, not outstanding achievement.

Stress means that the external influences on the individual’s egoistic desires are greater than he can bare, that although a person is driven to fulfill the desire to receive pleasure, he is still unable to easily achieve the goals that are set before him. The difference between the desire for pleasure and the ability to acquire fulfillment for it creates a stressful state.

It is obvious that an average person will never be able to acquire all that he sees in the media. We are constantly living in a state of low-grade, chronic stress due to all the potentials for pleasure that are shown to us on the screen: clothes, sports, beauty. This relates to women and men equally.

Stress affects us on many levels. Ultimately, we will reach disillusionment and we will see that the condition is hopeless; we will leave this race for pleasure and reassess our values. Eventually everyone will realize this. Then we will see that we need to take a different route and search for pleasure in a completely different place.

There we will also compete to receive fulfillment, but differently. The one who brings the biggest benefit to others will be considered more successful. Pleasure from bestowal to others is much greater than egoistic fulfillment and does not lead to any stress.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/27/17

Premonition Of The Future Revelation

Torah, Deuteronomy 31:17 – 31:18: And My fury will rage against them on that day, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will befall them, and they will say on that day, “Is it not because our God is no longer among us, that these evils have befallen us?”

And I will hide My face on that day, because of all the evil they have committed, when they turned to other deities.

However, a person begins to understand that desires opposite to the Creator are revealed within him. It becomes clear to him from where and why everything comes. He feels that the Creator is hiding from him. This is already a premonition of the future revelation.

Question: Is this called good from the Creator’s side?

Answer: Of course. If I realize that the Creator is in concealment now because of my incorrect egoistic desires in which I feel this concealment, then I can ask for them to be corrected. Thus, my suffering will no longer be egoistic because I want to reveal the Creator in order to acquire the desire to bestow.

Then it is possible to demand, plead, and raise MAN—a prayer. And the Creator corrects the person’s desire and is revealed in the corrected desire.

Comment: The Creator says: “And they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will befall them.” Yet, you are saying that it is the highest goodness. There are a lot of contradictions.

Answer: We are talking about those degrees where a person no longer feels any problems. He is ready for anything, only to continue revealing the Creator further. It is just a repose for him.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/25/17

New Life #905 – A Spiritual Conscience

New Life #905 – A Spiritual Conscience
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

In a system in which everyone feels everyone and strives to bestow everything good to everyone, the Creator is felt. Throughout history we have evolved by defining human ideals according to which we measure ourselves. The new morality is not a social morality but a spiritual morality. It is measured in relation to a perfected state in which everyone lives as a single body.
From KabTV’s “New Life #905 – A Spiritual Conscience,” 9/7/17

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

The Era Of Stress, Part 3

Question: We exist within an immense system of nature that constantly develops and grows the desire to receive pleasure within us, while also having a hidden goal of bringing us to complete despair. What specifically is the cause of this despair?

Answer: We come to despair as a result of our own nature—egoism, the desire to receive pleasure—because if our actions stem directly from this desire, then we drive ourselves to stress, complete hopelessness, global crises, and wars.

Human nature itself is bad because it constantly pushes us to achieve the unattainable. As a result, we all have to continuously compete with everyone else and this causes stress.

Question: Why are these goals unattainable?

Answer: Because egoism wants everything that the eyes see. And if everyone wants to get what they want, then each person has to build their success on the failure of others. It is impossible to do it otherwise.

Everyone wants to rise higher than others, to be the king of the world, for others to be his subordinates. But he is not the only one in the world; there are eight billion other egoists just like him, and each one wants the same thing. The result is that I constantly need to protect my place under the sun. This is what our lives have become.

Question: Does that mean stress was pre-programmed into the system of nature?

Answer: Our egoistic nature is the sole reason for all our misery and suffering. But if we were able to pacify our desire for pleasure… . But it is impossible to pacify it, other than perhaps through the use of narcotics. But then the person is completely disconnected from his life.

And so a question arises: Why is everything built in this way? And here the science of Kabbalah explains that stress has a cause: to bring a person to the awareness of the evil of his own nature, which only pushes him to seek pleasure. A person’s drive to receive pleasure has no limits; this desire would swallow the entire world. And if there were several worlds, then all those as well.

That is why we live in stress. Our abilities are limited, life is short, and there is nothing that will help.

In practice, we see that our egoism harms only ourselves; it is because of it that we are sick, that we die. We suffer terribly and it’s all for nothing. That’s why it is written that “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household,” in other words, in your own body. Egoism is within my body—and it is my greatest adversary.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/27/17

The Times Of Israel: “Who Else Wants A New Reason To Celebrate Simchat Torah?”

The Times of Israel published my new article “Who Else Wants a New Reason to Celebrate Simchat Torah?”

Simchat Torah marks the conclusion of the Tishrei holiday cycle with a celebration of joy in the Torah.

What is the deeper meaning behind this celebration and joy that this holiday signifies? Why is there such an atmosphere of happiness? Where is this joy rooted?

To understand the deeper meaning behind Simchat Torah, we should first understand what is the deeper meaning behind the Torah itself.

What Is the Torah?

The Torah is the “light that reforms” [Midrash Rabah, Eicha, “Introduction,” Paragraph 2]. The term “light” doesn’t stand for any physical notion of light, like sunlight or candlelight, nor does it mean the emotional light we refer to when we resolve some situation, e.g. when we say that we see “the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Instead, the “light of the Torah” refers to the life-giving creative energy that transpires through nature’s every detail. As the light is a life-giving energy, opposite the light is that which it creates, sustains and develops: The light sustains the form of all objects, and vitalizes the growth, movement and development of all living organisms.

The light is a desire to give, and its creation—including us, everything in the planet we live in, and the whole universe—is a desire to receive.

The joy we feel during Simchat Torah symbolizes our discovery of this light, i.e. the attainment of its characteristic quality of giving upon our innate desire to receive. Such attainment about the feeling of a much more expansive reality than the one we feel when we only receive.

What Does the Torah “Reform”?

While we’ve established that the Torah is the light, what does it mean that this light “reforms”? What does it reform, and what kind of reformation is made?

Although we are a desire to receive, completely opposite to the light’s giving quality, we don’t feel the full intensity of this oppositeness, its “evil” (“the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” [Genesis, 8:21]).

What we do feel is that we develop slowly over a long period of time, and the more we develop, the more problems and pains emerge. The purpose of the unfolding crises in every field of life we’re experiencing today is to make us seek why they’re happening, and how they can be resolved. Moreover, today’s globally interdependent situation shows us that the more we develop without resolving the many personal, social, ecological and financial issues pressing on us, then we’re bound to tumble into deeper and deeper chasms.

These escalating crises today are in order to bring us to the discovery of our nature—the desire to receive pleasure for self-benefit alone—as the cause of our problems, and that we need to learn how to redirect our desires in order to fix these problems at their core. As it is written, “I have created the evil inclination,” and “I have created for it the Torah as a spice” [Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b] because “the light in it reforms them” [Midrash Rabah, Eicha, “Introduction,” Paragraph 2.]. In other words, our egoistic desires were created with a means of redirecting them into a form of giving (“the Torah”), and by doing so, correct (“reform”) them, thereby adding an additional fulfillment and pleasure to our lives (“a spice”).

How to Redirect Our Desires and Feel a Whole New Reality

By accessing the light of the Torah, we gain the ability to relate to each other and to nature in its entirety through its quality of giving. We then feel a more advanced, harmonious reality, balanced with nature’s life-giving energy. The question then is: How? How can we work with this light? How can we invite it into our lives, let it work on us, and allow it to bring about positive changes?

The answer is in society. When we gather with people who also wish to change their lives for the better and exert a positive influence in the world, we can literally “train” ourselves with the Torah to give as the light does. By doing so, we set the foundation for a society that is capable of switching the current chaotic direction the world is treading to a positive, harmonious one.

The creation of such a society of “givers” is emphasized in the tenets of the Torah, where it writes to “love your friend as yourself,” “that which you hate, do not do to others,” and become a society connected “as one man with one heart.” These sayings are not morals, but practical tools for their adherents to achieve the quality of giving and set the foundation for a harmonious society, balanced with nature.

While We’re Far from the Real Simchat Torah, Here’s a Good Reason to Celebrate the Joy and Happiness of Simchat Torah Right Now

At its core, the Tishrei holiday cycle expresses our shift as a divided, egoistic society to one of connection, altruism and balance with nature’s quality of giving. Its final day, Simchat Torah, celebrates the favorable outcome of this shift.

Although the basis of Simchat Torah is far from where we see our society heading today, it’s an opportunity for us all to think about where we are as individuals and as a society in relation to this harmonious state. We can rejoice in our recognition of the real cause of all our problems—our egoistic nature—and that we have the means at our disposal to redirect this nature to a positive direction. That’s already a major step towards the reformation the Torah speaks about.

Therefore, we have a very good reason to be happy this Simchat Torah. Let’s use the opportunity to consider how we can train the light’s quality of giving, love and connection among each other, and show that there is indeed a positive alternative to the escalating divisions, struggles and conflicts around the world.

May it be a happy holiday to all!
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A Few Quotes From The "Shabbat Page" on 20th of October 2017

The Importance of the Group of Ten

We see that the entire process that we are going through is only in a group of Ten. All of the difficulties we have in carrying out this process are only because we don’t consider the group of Ten to be enough; it has not yet penetrated us in our minds and hearts that this structure is where we discover the higher power, the upper world, the result of our work and so on. What this means is that everything is there, we still don’t feel that so much. Here we must remember what the great ones wrote for us that in our work, even when we don’t see it and don’t want it and don’t understand it and actually get a kind of coolness, coldness from approaching each other, even our physical work that we can carry out from the first day that we have come to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can already begin to approach each other in our physical work and begin to build a connection between us that will ultimately be called a “soul”.

From the Morning Lesson, Part 1, October 18, 2017

The True Arvut

As long as we haven’t constructed Arvut, and it only depends on us, filling each one with a feeling of the greatness of the Creator, when the society is prepared to fill each one in this way, we cannot advance towards a spiritual Kli. That is basically what is standing in front of us and we must not forget it, rather we must pay attention only to this and be involved with it. That’s it. The greatness of the Creator depends only upon the society and can be attained on top of the agreement that they make, this agreement being called, “Arvut”. In this way they are really like those who distribute to one another among everyone a large amount of booty, which is the importance of the Creator. To the degree of that importance we can be involved with bestowal to the Creator and therefore advance. To the degree of that importance we draw upon the Reforming Light. It is only in this that it is necessary to make an effort.

From the Morning Lesson, October 10, 2017

The Creator By Way of the Group

We must see all of the work solely and only according to how useful it is for the group of Ten. This is because within the right structure that the group of Ten must get, we discover the structure of the upper world, the Creator dwelling in it, within the group of Ten, filling it. In the relationships between us in the group of Ten, from ordinary relationships we reach qualities, the qualities become Sefirot, and that is how we begin to discover later in the relationships between us the relationships between the Sefirot, the HaVaYaH, the name of the higher power, which is His revelation to us. HaVaYaH, Adonai, Ekeh and so on; these are the relationships between the friends through which the Creator is discovered among them.

From the Morning Lesson, Part 1, October 18, 2017