Happy Holiday Of Spiritual Conception!

The deeper we delve into explaining the holiday of Hanukkah, the more we are convinced that it contains the entire path, all events, and all states that one who wishes to reveal the spiritual world, the upper force, goes through.

It might seem like some ancient story that has turned into a folk or children’s holiday: lighting candles, eating sweet donuts…

However, in reality, Hanukkah contains the entire struggle of a person as he breaks out of this world, upward. He overcomes all of the obstacles that the Creator places in front of him in order to reveal, above them, the upper world, his eternal and perfect state, the “advantage of Light from the darkness.”

It becomes revealed precisely against the transient, imperfect states that come to us in times of great calamities and wars, the realization of human egoistic nature.

Discernments, discernments, discernments… through all the states that we are destined to undergo. No one treading this path can circumvent or skip any discernment or obstacle; one has to go through them one after another. No one will receive more or less work than the others—each person might have his own accents and measures, but in reality, every one of us goes through every step on this path.

Not only are we all parts of one body, but through the breaking we have also become included in one another and every person is inside everyone. Once, before the breaking, the reciprocal penetration was there only among the bestowing desires.

However, after Adam HaRishon’s downfall of sin, the receiving and bestowing desires intermixed with each other, along with the upper Light that had filled them at the time of the breakage. As a result, every state includes all the others, and only becomes discerned through the lack of correction. Therefore, every person has to go through all of the states.

The quality of bestowal, Bina, must become revealed during Hanukkah. It explains all of our characters to us, our path, the person’s exit from revealing this world to revealing the upper world that shows him what he must separate from and become free of, what he must distance himself from and what he must come closer to, cleave to, connect to, and in what forms.

This is all contained in the holiday of Hanukkah, in the corrections that we have to go through. We could call it “the holiday of spiritual conception and nursing,” that is, a small state for now. Yet it’s already a spiritual state: Even though a person still can’t use them practically, he is already gaining the understanding and forces that belong to the upper, spiritual world.

He enters the degree of Bina, and that is the entrance to the Garden of Eden! Starting from this stage and on, he builds himself in equivalence with the Creator. Before the holiday of Hanukkah, he was only correcting himself in order to rise above his egoism, to become free from it, and separate from it. By reading articles about Hanukkah, we strive to check, discern, and understand the conditions that allow us to acquire the quality of bestowal, Bina.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/17, “Lesson on the Topic: Hanukkah According to Kabbalah”

How Do We Organize Ourselves For Prayer

The direct, natural reaction of the desire for the Light is programmed and known in advance, so there is no creation here.After all, “creation” (Beria) means “outside of state” (bar), that is, something new. The creation begins with the opportunity given to the desire to respond in an unnatural way, not instinctively, but according to different, extraneous criterion. The desire has to love the Light not for all kinds of pleasant fillings, but for the fact that the Light is elevated, special, giving, and has exceptional, noble qualities, peculiar only to the Light.

It turns out that the created being appreciates the Light precisely for the fact that it behaves in the opposite way to the nature of the desire: as giving and able to act outside its interest. The desire appreciates this quality. While enjoying the filling, the desire simultaneously realizes that the Light brings pleasure to it, fills it, cares for, and tends to it. It begins to appreciate this attitude like a child who grew up and appreciates his parents’ love and care. In this way, the Kli begins to appreciate the Creator.

In order to elevate the creation to its degree of bestowal, the Creator takes direct pleasures away from it, and enables it to fill itself and enjoy bestowal and not receiving.

In our life, we implement the same scenario. In infancy, we enjoy receiving from our parents, using them and demanding from them. Yet as we grow older, we gradually become separated from our parents, to this extent we begin to understand what they have done for us, and we treat our children in the same way.

The Creator leads us to independence, which appears when we move from the property of receiving to the property of bestowal, that is, when we use our desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal in order to bring enjoyment to the Creator and not to ourselves.

This desire should come from us and should not be imposed by the Light. However, this is possible only under the condition that we are in the ten and bestow to each other, internally connecting with each other. Then through this connection, we receive the Light. We demand through the ten this special power of bestowal and use it. Although this energy of bestowal does not belong to us, we can form the need for it in ourselves.

Instead of the instinctive need for filling and enjoying filling ourselves, we want the power of bestowal and enjoyment from it. This is the purpose of creation: that all created beings enjoy bestowal, following the example of the Creator.

Love Is Stronger Than Nature

The prayer of the common man is to feel pleasant at every moment, and all inanimate nature, plants, and animals ask the same. It is an ordinary, instinctive prayer felt by a person as natural self-care or as the influence of a religion that teaches a person to turn to the Creator with a request for filling.

However, there is a method that teaches us to demand not an egoistic filling in this and in the next world, but the opportunity to become similar to the Creator, to His actions, and enjoy bestowal. Also, you can enjoy bestowal only when you love the one to whom you bestow, as parents enjoy bestowing to their child. By virtue of their love for the children, a parent receives from bestowing to a child even more than if he would take for himself.

This is a proof that love can be stronger than nature. Indeed, we see in inanimate nature, plants, and animals many examples when parents die for their offspring. Their instinct pushes them to sacrifice themselves. It turns out that bestowal illuminated by the power of love is stronger than the desire to enjoy.

Therefore, there are two kinds of prayer. The first one is the prayer of “people in the street” about selfish filling, enjoyment, confidence in the present and in the future, which may be unconscious, instinctive, or conscious. The second prayer is no longer that of one in the street, but in accordance with the Torah, that is, a request for the power of bestowal. In bestowal, the action itself is important and not its result, and I enjoy the fact that I do not expect any response from this action: it comes out of me and this is where everything ends for me. This is what the prayer is devoted to: to receive the ability to bestow, to fill your neighbor according to the example of the Creator, and thereby bestow pleasure to the Creator.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/18, Lesson on the Topic “How do We Organize Ourselves for Prayer”

Work In All Stages

Question: How should we look at the friends: Are they higher than me, or are we all equal?

Answer: I do not care if they are higher or lower; I am prepared to work in all the stages! I have to relate to them differently.

After all, in the states of reception and bestowal in which we must achieve our unity, there is no higher and lower. There, each one is both higher and lower than the others since each of us has his own special qualities. I must give them to the whole large Kli (vessel), to the entire soul, and receive from it what I need for correct functioning.

Therefore, only when we care about the general state of the soul that is called either Adam or the Creator (depending on what we are talking about—either about the structure of the system itself or about its filling), can we talk about correct work. Only the connection with the Creator, or aspiration for this connection, gives us the basis for the correct work.

Question: Do I need to pay attention to the fact that friends’ aspiration to the Creator is stronger than mine?

Answer: If a person feels this way, it  drives him forward.

It is written: “The end of an act is in the preliminary thought”; that is, it determines the beginning of the action. Therefore, the main thing for me is to determine the Creator: what it is, what I am looking for, where I can go, what I aspire to, what state I see as my goal, and based on this, I will already be looking at what I need for achieving this goal.

Question: When I hold a goal before me, in what am I lower than my friends in the spiritual work in the group?

Answer: If any great Kabbalist finds himself in the smallest group, he will still be in something lower than them because he needs to have a connection with them so that they would influence him with their desires, hopes, and thoughts. He must receive from them their desires and their aspirations.

Without this, he will not be able to actively participate in the group, even if he is the greatest. He needs to be lower than them, to serve them in order to receive their aspiration to the Creator. Then, he will be able to work with these aspirations.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 5/9/18

At War With Illusion

Right now is a special period of time of the holiday of Hanukkah.But, in essence, Hanukkah is a process that exists until the very end of correction and is experienced at the beginning of every new degree.

Each time new informational records (Reshimot) from the shattering are revealed in us, we need to make a restriction, a screen, and reflected light, all of which is the essence of the Hanukkah correction.

We are always trying to remain within reason, to live according to our earthly intellect and experience, our habitual egoism accepted by this world. But in contrast, we need to build a different form. All that we see, experience, and understand with our hearts and minds is revealed only within our egoistic organs of perception, as it is written: “They have eyes and see not, they have ears but hear not.”

We want to experience what is happening in the desire to bestow, which is called faith above reason, deciding that everything comes from one upper force, the good that does good. And so each moment.

There are moments we are able to do this and other times we are not successful, but this war goes on continuously. Essentially, this is the war of the Maccabees against the Greeks. This war is being waged within reason, within our experience of this world, our rational minds and our philosophies, within our egoistic mind with which we built so many systems of connections between us.

We are fighting to establish a different form of existence, acknowledging that all our sensory experiences and perceptions are wrong. This is a false picture, a false perception of reality, because it appears within the egoistic mind.

Through the perception of reality within our rational minds, we need to try to feel that everything comes from only one, absolutely benevolent upper force. And every form perceived within the mind is only given to us in order to raise us to different perception, to faith above reason.

In other words, we agree that everything comes from the Creator and this is the specific form with which He can bring us to the true perception of reality, to the world of truth. We must try to establish the truth at every moment 24 hours every day, despite all the impressions in one’s earthly feelings and rational mind, which are not subject to doubt, that is, within reason.

Also, we do not run from this rational perception, because “…one against the other He created them.” We do not cross anything out, we only try to process it correctly: one against the other until we are able to develop understanding above reason for each understanding within reason.

That is how we attain the perception of spiritual reality and begin to function on two levels: on the material level, observing all its laws and rules accepted among the people of this world, and also in the true spiritual reality.

Then the upper Light is revealed because we are now able to light the jug of oil according to all the conditions, and in this way, we attain the revelation of the Creator and the upper world.

During the day, one day after the next, and every moment, we must try to see ourselves in this battle, imagining the picture within reason and juxtaposed against it, the picture above reason. This is the war of the Maccabees against the Greeks: Greeks are within reason and the Maccabees are above it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/17, Lesson on the Topic: “Hanukkah by the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

Worlds’s 8 Billions People Possess Seed of Anti-Semitism

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 11/30/18

How is it possible that in today’s modern and enlightened Europe, 1 in 20 Europeans has never heard of the terrible Holocaust that took place on their land? What is causing 1 out of 5 Europeans to justify anti-Semitic sentiments? How is it possible that 10 percent of Europeans report having “unfavorable attitudes” toward Jews? And how can it be that in 2018, 40 percent of Europeans confirm that Jews in their countries are in danger of being harmed by anti-Semitic violence?

These figures were just published in a comprehensive survey conducted by CNN across Europe. While the poll shed light on anti-Semitism in Europe, one vital number was missing: all 8 billion of the world’s citizens possess a seed of anti-Semitism.

Whether conscious or not, every person in the world carries a unique attitude toward the Jews, which can manifest itself in various forms, ranging from positive to negative: from appreciation and sympathy, through envy and hate, to a drive for destruction.

In some people the seed of anti-Semitism evolves naturally. In others it needs a “supportive environment” in order to sprout. For some leaders, cultivating the seed of anti-Semitism can help with gaining control over the public. There are countless reasons and justifications for anti-Semitism, but the seed remains the same.

Baal HaSulam writes that “It is a fact that Israel is hated by all the nations, whether for religious, racial, capitalist, communist, or for cosmopolitan reasons, etc. It is so because the hatred precedes all reasons, and each one merely resolves his loathing according to his own psychology.” (Writings of the Last Generation).

Hatred of Jews is governed by the laws of nature. It precedes both the psychological explanations each person provides to himself, and the sociological analyses provided by researchers.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the whole of humanity exists in a network of mutual connections, as a system whose parts are completely interdependent. In order for this network to keep its balance and stability, Jews of all walks of life must be spiritually connected to each other above their differences. They have to serve as a “channel” through which a positive, unifying influence will flow into the world and spread throughout the network.

In the words of Baal HaSulam, “the Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the entire human race the world over… until they develop to such an extent that they acknowledge the pleasantness and tranquility that are found in the kernel of love of others.” (“The Arvut”).

Otherwise, when the people of the world do not feel a unifying influence, they are governed by the influence of human egoism, which incites hatred and division. And these negative sentiments are instinctively directed at the Jews.

Therefore, the many different attempts to combat anti-Semitism – through education, diplomacy, advocacy, raising awareness and dialogues – can only address the symptoms without touching on the root of the problem. Likewise, the Hungarian government’s planned investment of € 1.5 million a year to fight anti-Semitism throughout Europe will not yield lasting results in the long run.

Education and awareness are certainly needed, but they should lead to recognizing the natural system that governs the dynamics of human society – a system that evolves the whole of humanity to a higher level of human connection; a system that works to everyone’s favor when the Jewish people fulfill their role.

As Rav Kook wrote: “In Israel lies the secret for the unity of the world.”

To learn more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

(Image of The Home Office hate crime campaign, created by M&C Saatchi London)

The Miracle Of Hanukkah

Question: A miracle happened on Hanukkah when a candle that could only burn for a day kept burning for eight days. What is a candle, a wick, and oil from a Kabbalistic perspective?

Answer: A candle is a barrel with oil and a wick floating inside it. Thanks to the wick, we can light the oil that rises up the wick and burns. Separately the oil and the wick will not burn, but when the oil enters the wick, the candle lights up.

The wick embodies the rejection of light. The oil represents the fuel, but it cannot burn by itself. Therefore, we must understand that our growing egoism is transformed through our work into its opposite, as it is written: “The evil angel becomes the good one” or “The angel of death becomes the angel of life.”

The Maccabees found the barrel of oil because they tried to reach the quality of love and bestowal, the connection between them, and they were able to light it because they had great resistance to those segments of the population that bowed to the Greek idols and built Greek temples in Jerusalem.

The war of the Maccabees was internal, within themselves, not an external one with the Greeks or the Hellenists inside of Israel. When they overcame their egoistic resistance, they transformed their resentment between them into the wick inside the oil and were able to light it.

Therefore, the barrel of oil with a wick embodies specifically the person’s spiritual work. It means nothing to simply find a keg—the main thing is to be able to light it. When the Maccabees, by overcoming the resistance of their egos, united, the barrel was found that they were able to put the wick into and light. In other words, they transformed their egoism and it began to be illuminated by the upper Light, and their souls lit up, illuminated by the Light. This is the miracle of Hanukkah.

Question: Why did the candle burn for eight days instead of one?

Answer: It is because, if you work for the purpose of love and bestowal, you ascend higher. There are eight Sefirot from Malchut to Bina, eight parts of desires. Even though there is only one Malchut, through resistance, i.e., faith above reason, it illuminates all the Sefirot to the highest one—Bina.

The Maccabees were able to rise to the real quality of bestowal, which is called faith above reason. Reason is in Malchut, while faith— in Bina. The rise from Malchut to Binaembodies the miracle of Hanukkah.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Meaning of Hanukkah,” 12/7/17

When Will The Maccabees Return?

Question: What is the Kabbalistic meaning of the holiday of Hanukkah?

Answer: The Kabbalistic meaning of the holiday is that, having discovered ourselves to be absolute egoists who have no connection with the spiritual world and who live only their animal lives, we realize that we must shake off the dust of egoism from ourselves and begin to live with the Light within the heart—with the aspiration toward a heartfelt connection with each other.

Only in the connection between us can the upper world, the upper force, be revealed. Lighting a little flame between us—the quality of bestowal and mutual love—is called “Hanukkah.” From that little Light called Nefesh, then Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida, which are all mutual friendly relations, gradually begin to blossom, which lets us connect all our qualities and aspirations between us and begin to feel ourselves as one supportive, kind family.

This happens gradually. There are seven stages in the spiritual world: Chesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. It is just that we are rising from the bottom up, from Malchut to the highest, to Chesed, igniting within ourselves ever-greater light.

This is what Hanukkah represents (from Hebrew “hanu-kah,” “hanaya” ‑ stopover). After this stopover, there is a period until Purim when we achieve the Sefirot above Chesed: Bina, Hochma, and Keter. Then, absolute unity and complete enlightenment and the consecration of our mutual connection will be achieved, when we actually become as one whole, one soul, called “Adam.”

We have to aspire to this, because this is the goal of our lives, our existence, the goal of creation.

Question: Where in this path are the Greeks?

Answer: The Greeks are between us, these are forces that separate us, prevent us from uniting, push us away from each other, as the Egyptians had done earlier.

In other words, everything that prevents our unity and adhesion are called either the Egyptians, the Romans or the Greeks, depending on the level. But, in principle, it is our egoism.

Even now we obey the Egyptians and the Romans and the Greeks—the so-called “nations of the world,” who exist within us—the egoistic forces that control us.

Question: So right now we are not at war with them?

Answer: Not at all. What war? On the contrary, we invite all our external enemies to us. We don’t even consider them as enemies. We are elitists. We think that their culture, science, and education are what is best for us. We are not even planning on uniting.

Question: In other words, we want to live like them, but we should want to live like the nation of Israel?

Answer: Living like the nation of Israel doesn’t mean sitting from morning to night reading the Torah. We must build the right kind of society in which everyone would be connected by the laws of friendship and love. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the main law of the Torah that we must begin to obey.

Question: When will the Maccabees come and start the war?

Answer: We are trying to do it as much as we can.

Question: Will it happen suddenly? In the last moment, when everything comes to a dead end, in suffering?

Answer: Hopefully it will not carry out like that. The Maccabees came when there was no other alternative, and Judah Maccabee screamed: “Whoever is for the Creator, follow me!”

Nonetheless, let’s hope that we will, gradually, through the dissemination of Kabbalah, come to a time when people will begin to understand us and will want to approach this idea.

Question: If we are talking in terms of the material world, then the Maccabees were Kabbalists?

Answer: Of course. “Everyone who is for the Creator, to me!” is a Kabbalistic call, that is: “Let’s unite! We agree to be the central point of connection.” Judah Maccabee was a great scholar, a great sage, a Cohen, and that is why he was able to do that. On his spiritual level he really did have the power to draw the entire nation to himself.

Question: In other words, the Creator, essentially, is unity?

Answer: Yes. The experience of unity or the experience of the Creator is one and the same. The Creator is not something that exists outside of us, but rather that force of unity and love that we achieve. We call it the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Meaning of Hanukkah,” 12/7/17

The Times Of Israel: “Beware! These Hanukkah Insights Require Some Mental And Emotional Effort”

My article “Beware! These Hanukkah Insights Require Some Mental and Emotional Effort” published in The Times of Israel. 

As we light candles, eat soufganiyot and spin dreidels this Hanukkah, here’s an infographic to give us deeper insights into the holiday’s customs and concepts. Since Hanukkah discusses the initial entrance into a new, vast reality of positive connection among people, then in addition to the points in the infographic, here are some further elaborations…

Hanukkah, the Festival of Light = the Festival of Positive Connection

The inner meaning of “light” means positive connections among people. It has nothing to do with the light of the sun, or candlelight, or even the light of contentment we feel upon resolving some great doubt. To bring connection among people is the role of the Jewish people, i.e. to be “a light for the nations.”

We Jews need to first realize positive connection among each other, via connection-enriching education, and by doing so, be a conduit for this light to flow through to the world. Hanukkah is a special time when we Jews can contemplate what it means, for us and for the world, if we realized our role of being “a light for the nations” in today’s turbulent times.

Hanukkah = the First Parking Spot on a Roadtrip to Love

By connecting in a positive way, we mend our shattered, egoistic connections. It’s a process, and Hanukkah is its first stop (Hanu [park/stop], Koh [here]). It symbolizes not doing to others what we hate. This process of correction continues until we reach “love your friend as yourself.”

We Jews both have the mission and the means to pioneer and pass this correction process onto the rest of the world. At Hanukkah, we stop at this juncture where we connect by “not doing to others what we hate.” It’s not yet love, but it’s a significant step in that direction.

The Greeks = The Ego

The Greeks are a specific discernment of our ego, where we rationally justify why we don’t need to put in efforts to connect with each other. It has nothing to do with Greek nationality or culture.

If we, on the contrary, awaken the Jewish tendency to unite, trying to connect above the ego that tells us otherwise (the Greeks), we’ll start feeling the light of positive connection shine in the world, an extraordinary sensation of a much fuller reality than we’ve ever experienced in our daily lives. It’s that special reality, which is locked behind our efforts to connect to each other, that we Jews have the key to unlock for ourselves and for the world.

The Miracle of Hanukkah = The Awakening of the Desire to Connect

While the Greeks, our egos, tell us every good reason why we don’t need to try and connect with each other, if we put in efforts above its rationale, finding even the smallest will to connect to each other, that connective desire is considered the miracle of Hanukkah. It’s miraculous because it doesn’t exist in the egoistic human nature. It’s a spark of desire that awakens in us, and if we cherish it like a precious candlelight that we want to protect from wind and anything else that could put it out, then we can let that candlelight last, and ignite the process of fixing our connections.

Beyond the rather childlike customs and stories, Hanukkah marks a very serious initial stage in the process of fixing our connections: “Don’t do to others what you hate.” While going through the motions of the Hanukkah customs and songs, why not also pay attention to our attitudes to each other? Are we making an effort to connect to each other positively, above any differences between us?

Let us use this Hanukkah to realize the significant step it represents toward our becoming “a light for the nations,” i.e. becoming an example of positive connection for the world.
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