The Purpose Of A Kabbalistic Group, Part 3

The Highest Desire—Israel

Question: Evolution constantly separates some parts of nature. It turns out that a group of people called “Israel,” which has a certain path of development, is selected by evolution. Then, all kinds of small groups called “tens” comprise that group.

Why is it impossible to work with the whole of humanity? Why is it necessary to be locked in a small group of people?

Answer: The fact is that the soul, that is, the general desire created by the Creator, is divided into many different levels and sublevels. For example, if we take its highest, most sensitive level, then, it is, in turn, the most egoistic and at the same time closest in its effect to the light back and forth. That is, it is directed to the light and the light is directed to it. Light is the Creator’s influence on a desire.

Therefore, in the first place, it is this highest desire that begins to develop, which because of its aspiration for the Creator is called “Israel,” meaning “directly to the Creator.” Being closest to Him, it must first come into contact with the Creator and then through it the influence of the Creator passes on to other desires.

Remark: We know that it is unrelated to nationalities since the group of Israel was assembled from the least egoistic representatives of various tribes of ancient Babylon.

My Comment: I would not say that they were less egoistic. On the contrary, they felt more detached and more susceptible to all kinds of bad states. As a result of this, they felt that they were obliged to attain the meaning of life, or, allegorically, that they must attain where it comes from, who rules them, and how they can change their lives.

Therefore, they gathered around Abraham who called them to spiritual attainment. He explained to them that this is possible only if they begin to work together on unity among themselves.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/6/19

What Is A Real Jew? – Talk With Matt Beat

Is Jew a representative of a specific ethnic or religious group? Does it apply to national identity or social status? Is it something that you can become or get rid of?

It is none of the above. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, “Jew” is a quality that awakens in a person who longs for connection with the upper force of love and bestowal through unity with other human beings.

From this point of view, there are no good or bad Jews, or true or half-true Jews. There are only people who want to maintain the condition of “love your neighbor as yourself” and balance the destructive nature of the human ego with the power of positive connections between us.

Today, we see the world becoming more and more divided, a situation that might lead to an explosion. Our ego is rapidly growing which makes people increasingly alienated from each other. However, even in such conditions, there is a chance of achieving a peaceful and pleasant life. If we let the point called “Jew” appear in our hearts, we’ll be able to get together and cultivate healthy human relations peacefully and in balance.
—

The Jew Function – YouTube Channel Dedicated to this series

Hebrew Language Day

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 1/19/20

Why Is it Important to Emphasize the Hebrew Language’s Holiness and Purity?

As we reach this year’s Hebrew Language Day, which is celebrated in Israel annually on the birthday of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who is known as the father of modern spoken Hebrew, I would like to emphasize the holiness and purity of the Hebrew language.

In an age when social media culture generates all kinds of hybrids within the Hebrew language, I see importance in making a special effort to strive for a pure Hebrew. The importance stems from the fact that the original Hebrew language points to the nation’s internal intelligence.

Why is this especially so with Hebrew?

It is because, unlike other languages, Hebrew has been consistent for generations, ranging from the Bible to its contemporary form. Indeed, Hebrew constantly evolves, changes and diversifies, but for instance, if we would speak to King David using the Hebrew we now have, the chances of his understanding would be higher than, say, a medieval French king’s understanding of modern French.

Hebrew has a characteristic concise style that gets straight to the point. For instance, two or three words of Hebrew can often translate into four or five words of English. Also, more significantly, it is a language that is not the invention of people. As written in Abraham’s Sefer Yetzira (The Book of Creation) some 3,800 years ago, “the twenty-two letters—[the Creator] created His entire Universe with them. He formed all that was made and all that will be made with them in the future.” According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet are twenty-two code signs, which Kabbalists use in order to describe the process of spiritual attainment.

The horizontal and vertical lines comprising the shapes of the Hebrew letters express two fundamental spiritual qualities:

Horizontal lines express the force of love and bestowal in the soul.

Vertical lines express the lights, i.e., the spiritual pleasures that fill the soul.

Therefore, the twenty-two shapes of the Hebrew letters express twenty-two types of the soul’s filling by the upper light.

When we create the Hebrew letters in our souls, meaning that we attain those spiritual qualities, and do so with the intent of loving and bestowing to others like the Creator, then we become like Him. We then understand the Creator’s modus operandi and feel the eternal state of creation.

We enter the spiritual world to the extent that we develop a desire to love and bestow. The Hebrew letter “Mem Sofit” (“ם”), with its square shape, symbolizes this desire. When we acquire the desire to love and bestow, we feel the Creator’s love completely surrounding us, much like how the shape of a square signifies a defined protected space.

The Kabbalists codified spiritual states in the Hebrew letters, expressing their ascent from this corporeal world to the eternal spiritual world. The twenty-two letters describe the experiential states they have undergone in their process of spiritual development. When these letters are combined into words and sentences, the Hebrew language emerges.

If we read Kabbalistic texts with the desire to discover the real understanding and sensation of the spiritual world, the power of the letters will open our soul. We will then truly begin to feel the spiritual reality and “speak Hebrew” in the fullest sense of the term.

Israel’s Duty Toward Humanity

Israel’s duty toward humanity is a very important topic because it determines our entire work directed to the end result: to connect all the created beings into one being in adhesion with the Creator. This process includes internality and externality because there is the Creator and there is the created being, and both these systems consist of internal and external parts.

The internal part of the Creator is Atzmuto, His essence, and the external part is His attitude toward the created beings. The created beings consist of Israel and the nations of the world in proportion to the intensity of the desire remaining after the shattering.

The point that awakens in a person and pulls one to correction is called “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-Kel), Israel. Such a person must receive help from above and also organize one’s environment and work from below.

The purpose of creation is the general end of correction, and therefore, we must yearn for it all the time. This will appeal to the upper force, which wants everyone to know it from the smallest to the greatest. Therefore, we must bring this knowledge to all the nations of the world and provide them with a connection to the force of correction and unity, seeing ourselves in the role of Jonah the Prophet. Although we neither want nor know how to do it, we understand the importance and the greatness of our responsibility to become the light for the nations of the world.

“The end result is in the preliminary thought,” and therefore, we must already see the final goal and the final state, verifying each step by the extent to which we realize this goal. Our whole path is in carrying out the purpose of creation, the final corrected state, by getting closer and closer to it and perfecting ourselves.

The purpose of the big convention in Tel Aviv is to connect the entire worldwide Bnei Baruch group, thus laying the foundation for the general correction of the world.¹

We have received spiritual awakening only because it is necessary for our generation, which is obliged to start the correction. Therefore, if we wish to progress, we have to think about who we are working for. We, Israel, are the transitional channel connecting the Creator with the created beings. If we become faithful workers of the Creator and fulfill our mission without thinking about our own reward and destiny but only about giving contentment to the Creator and bring the created beings closer to Him so that He could correct and fulfill them, then we will succeed.

Therefore, we must take into account not our success but only our mission as servants of the Creator and the created beings, and then we can become partners of the Creator in creation. The main thing is to explain our future state to humanity, which already exists in nature and must be revealed. If we are ready for this revelation, we perceive it as good times. But if we are not ready, then nature still leads us through the same states toward the end of correction, but we feel them as unpleasant and we suffer. Therefore, for the benefit of the Creator and the benefit of the created beings, we need to prepare humanity for the next steps and help them constantly increase their connection.²

Why do we discuss these painful questions of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Nazism if there are so many nice topics in Kabbalah? The fact is that it is for the sake of healing, and the treatment is unpleasant and painful. The festering was internal and now that the doctor is opening it up to cure it; of course, it hurts. However, there is no way out, we need to open this wound and check it in order to understand what we did wrong and how to continue.

The correction is not revealed in the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, but it depends on the human material to the extent that it feels the stages of its development. If we understand how we should develop, we will welcome the doctor’s actions. Even animals tolerate pain if they feel that a person is trying to help them.

However, we should not just tolerate it but rather take part in our own development, and then these stages will become pleasant for us not only in our sensations but will also bring understanding and attainment. We will carry out our own treatment with the help of the upper force. This development will become desirable for us because we will be looking at ourselves from above, wanting to receive the force of bestowal against our egoistic desire.

Otherwise we will see the same catastrophe unfolding as eighty years ago in Germany, knowing what will happen if we do not intervene in the course of events. The path to the end of correction has already been set, but it is possible to walk through it by the path of the light or by the path of suffering—the choice is ours. There is no way to escape from it.

We must draw conclusions from the past history for the future because history always returns, the ten Sefirot are revealed again in our world, it is always the same process. It takes place with new weapons and on a new scale, always bigger and bigger, but the overall image always repeats itself.

Humanity is on the verge of a world war. It is no longer about individual extremist actions but about escaping the global catastrophe—the third world war that Baal HaSulam wrote about. This is not a long-term prospect and can happen at any moment. Once upon a time, war required long preparations, movement of troops, warships, and today it is enough to push a button to destroy half the world.

The increased attacks on the grounds of anti-Semitism are only initial signs of the final process of the general correction of the world through a world war. After all, we live in the last generation, in the era of the end of correction, so it will not be limited to a local war somewhere in Europe as it was before. The war will cover the entire planet, everyone will begin to settle scores with each other. It will be revealed that fifty countries have nuclear weapons, which is unknown at the moment.³

With each passing day, it becomes increasingly clear that the world needs to unite; otherwise, it will fall apart. The glue is a connection that can only be achieved by Israel’s example. There is no other way according to the laws of nature.⁴

People must understand:
1. The key to the entire historical process is in the people of Israel.
2. The sharp reaction of the general egoism of the nations of the world is caused by the fact that the Jews hesitate and do not accelerate the correction.

Now it becomes clear how we must act together: Israel and the nations of the world. Anti-Semitism, hatred toward Jews, in the nations of the world, awakens in order to push the Jews forward.

It is written in Prophets that the nations of the world will lift Israel on their shoulders and bring them to build the Temple. Do you think that Jews will be carried on a tray like a gift? No, it will be in the form of a demand. The people of Israel must feel the need of the nations of the world for correction, for understanding the thought of creation, its purpose. All the troubles of this world are the result of the fact that humanity receives no answer about the cause of its suffering. This is suffering from the lack of the light of Hassadim, the attainment of the Creator, which is also why drugs are so common. This is all because Israel does not carry the upper light through themselves to the nations of the world.

The nations of the world should learn their role, how they should use the negative attitude toward the Jews, the hatred that is awakening in them, and turn it into a demand so that together with the people of Israel, they can perform the correction. The method is in the people of Israel, and the power is in the nations of the world, so we must tread together toward the end of correction.⁵
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/30/19, Israel’s Duty Toward Humanity

“Is Another Holocaust Inevitable This Time In The USA?” (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is another Holocaust inevitable this time in the USA?“

The signals of an extremely dangerous situation for Jews similar to the time preceding the Holocaust are definitely visible in America, where historically high numbers of violent anti-Semitic attacks are reported every day. Deliberate assaults upon Jews only for being Jews have become particularly recurrent in New York. Hate crime monitoring groups call the state an “epidemic.”

In fact, 2019 was the worst year on record for anti-Semitic incidents in New York City: around 214 complaints compared to 182 cases the previous year, according to police data. These make up roughly half of all hate crimes reported in the city.

The “Slow-Rolling Pogrom” in New York

In a recent letter sent to New York City Governor, Andrew Cuomo, four Jewish lawmakers urged him to declare state of emergency amid the spate of anti-Semitic offenses, expressing great concern that “it is no longer safe to be identifiably Orthodox in the State of New York. We cannot shop, walk down a street, send our children to school, or even worship in peace.”

They described the menace against the American Jewish community as a “slow-rolling pogrom,” and added, “anti-Semitic hate crimes have grown to frighteningly high numbers over the past several months…. identifiably Orthodox Jews in and around areas we represent have been targeted with a rash of violence unseen in modern history. Orthodox Jews are being regularly assaulted, menaced, stabbed and murdered in increasing numbers.”

I cannot view the current situation heedlessly. During the last decade I’ve warned through media
articles and books about the threat of a potential new Holocaust on American soil in light of the growing anti-Jewish sentiment from multiple fronts. Only a few years ago, when I met Jewish leaders to express my concern, they reacted with incredulity.

Now their perspective has changed. Former Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind has
questioned, “Why are Jews being assaulted in a way they were assaulted in pre-Nazi Germany?” and
said, “if you were to ask Jews 20 years ago if a Holocaust could happen in America, you would get a uniform answer: ‘it’s impossible, not in America.’ Well, that’s not the case anymore.”

The increased recognition of American anti-Semitism is a positive first step toward addressing the problem and unearthing its solution. I expressed this in my new book
The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism (p. 190) as follows:

“Clearly, the 20th century marked a new level in the cruelty of humankind, especially toward Jews. Having experienced the Holocaust, we cannot be certain that it will not happen again. If it happened once, it can happen twice, or thrice, and the globally mounting hatred toward Jews and toward the State of Israel proves that the fear of a second Holocaust is well-founded. This, once again, reminds us of the necessity to return to Abraham’s method of uniting above our differences, and of our duty to set an example to the world by so doing.”

As foremost Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag wrote in the early 1950s:

“The world erroneously considers Nazism a particular offshoot of Germany. In truth, it is the offshoot of a democracy and socialism that were left without … manners and justice. Thus, all the nations are the same in this, and there is no hope at all that Nazism will perish with the victory of the Allies, for tomorrow the Anglo-Saxons will adopt Nazism, since they, too, live in a world of democrats and Nazis.” (The Writings of the Last Generation)

The Jewish Duty to Prevent a New Tragedy

Our Jewish nation was forged upon the ideology of mercy and brotherly love, when strangers agreed to unite and bond as equals. We became a nation when we pledged to be “as one man with one heart.” Since then, it has been our duty to maintain this connection and pass it on, namely to be a “light unto the nations,” not out of entitlement, but to serve others. Therefore, the duty of the Jewish people is to execute and set an example of love of others to the world.

Over time, we have abandoned the unique connection we once cultivated and became self-centered. But now that globalization has made us interdependent, humanity is seeking a way to live together peacefully but cannot find one. Until Jews relearn how to be as united as before, the world lacks access to the knowledge of how to do this and will continue to blame us for its woes. Their unfulfilled demand is unfailingly projected as anti-Semitism, as a mounting pressure, until we change our course of action toward cohesion rather than division.

So being a light unto nations is a practical assignment: make peace among ourselves and the world will also be at peace.

Unity for Good

The world is always examining what we do, so whenever we display disharmony, it serves as a bad example that becomes reflected in the world. If we quarrel among each other, we project this disharmony onto other nations and they also begin to fight. But deep within they sense that their fight somehow originated with us, just as they express in the forms of mounting rancor toward us.

Our problem is that we unite only when a common enemy threatens us. If we would turn unity into a conscious process, we would require no dark outcome of a new Holocaust to direct us toward it. Thus, the pressing times we face will decisively demand us to make a fateful decision. Our Jewish choice is whether to remain divided and at odds and suffer the consequences, or to reverse our attitude toward one another, develop mutual responsibility and care, and spread it to the world. If we wisely choose the latter, a new reality of trust, friendship, and mutual support will unfold before us, in America and worldwide.

What Is The Root Of Hatred Against Jews? – Talk With Matt Beat

Throughout the centuries, hatred toward Jews couldn’t be explained rationally. Some people said that Jews are too detached from the rest of society, and others said that they poisoned their beliefs, but in truth, the more Jews tried to assimilate and disperse among the nations, the more they were hated. Why?

The hatred against Jews exists because, according to the laws of nature, they have to bring the world to the complete and connected state, but they refuse to perform this task.

The Jewish people are the collection of the 70 nations of the ancient world. Thus, consciously or not, they represent all the nations of the world, and the relationship between them defines the relationship between the different ethnic groups.

Today’s world calls out for finding the solution to the fast-growing and overall crisis. This solution is in the nature of the connection between people, and Jews are the ones who possess the key to it. As soon as they maintain unity between them according to the principle “love your neighbor as yourself,” the whole world will follow their example, and the hatred will dissolve and turn into support.
—

“The Jew Function” – YouTube Channel Dedicated to this series

The Purpose Of A Kabbalistic Group, Part 2

Unique Generation

The great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, wrote that we are a unique generation because we have to master Kabbalah specifically within the group. Group work began with Baal Shem Tov and gradually continued to develop to this day.

Now we have to begin forming mini-unions within tens, to somehow show the world how we can unite, what we should be aimed at and how to go about it; meaning, we need to give the world an example of what its future would be like.

Question: So the group of people, or we can say the whole of humanity, is the place where the upper force, the Creator, becomes revealed?

Answer: Yes. We have to attain all the worlds while being in this world, in this life.

Question: Can the revelation of the Creator be compared to revealing the force of gravity that we all feel? There is a certain force of gravity between us all on the societal level.

Answer: Yes. But the thing is that we do not feel the upper force because each of us exists in a paticular individual concealment from it.

Thus, we are given the science of Kabbalah that helps everyone reveal it individually, but at the same time, we have to create a certain common entity—a group within which, inside a ten, we can begin to feel our similarity with the upper force.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/6/19

The Purpose Of A Kabbalistic Group, Part 1

Everyone has their own path toward the Creator

Question: Throughout history some Kabbalists have reached spiritual attainment without teachers. There were those who attained the Creator without the sources and even those who have done it without the group. How can one reach the goal without these factors?

Answer: It depends on the goal, the state, and the point in time.

Remark: The goal of those who study Kabbalah is to reveal the Creator.

My Comment: Even that can be quite different. Just like in our world one can be educated on different levels, in various aspects: in depth or in width, etc.

The fact is that all the souls are different, from various parts, meaning different parts of the common soul. Thus, throughout 20 generations from Adam to Abraham there were such souls that did not have the need for Kabbalah because they had a natural inner inclination toward attainment.

Question: Just like today there are people who are naturally embedded with the ability to heal people?

Answer: Exactly. They don’t know where they get it from. There are people who, on the contrary, attain it with knowledge and understanding, through teachers, through small groups of people. Everyone has their own path toward the Creator; there’s nothing that can be said about that.
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From the KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/6/19