Question: Can the Creator be a person’s direct teacher?
Answer: No. Our egoism would want this because it wants to receive, to capture, to seize, to enslave. The Creator can serve as a teacher only through the group, within it. To the same degree that I merge with the group, enter into it, dissolve within it, I begin to discover the presence of the Creator within it.
[224253]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/31/17
Question: Each phenomenon has its own spiritual root. What is the spiritual root of ordinary, earthly faith that is below reason without confirmation within reason?
Answer: The spiritual root of ordinary, earthly faith is a fear of death, of extinction.
Question: If there were no death, would there be no different beliefs?
Answer: Of course. Where do they come from? If we build faith only on the basis of feeling good or bad in this life, then beliefs would exist in a different form. The greatest loss is the loss of life. Small losses during life would create slightly different beliefs and religions.
Question: Does it mean that if a person is so afraid of death, he is ready to live forever?
Answer: If you gave a person an opportunity to live forever and followed him, you would see how he would feel in a couple of hundred years. It is a terrible state, worse than death, where every day is the same.
[223430]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/17/17
The difficult thing about studying Kabbalah is that it requires you to acquire new values. That is why those who are not ready or willing to do so due to lack of patience, leave. They do not believe that this study will bring them actual results and do not really understand what this science is about.
Here you need patience to let the upper Light work on you—the force that transforms us into a new being. Gradually, we begin to feel, understand, and judge through new definitions.
Although it seems like someone is the same person on the outside, in reality he is completely different. He is impossible to define by the regular, corporeal definitions, values, and rules. Now he thinks in terms of similarity of form with the upper force, quite differently.
Such qualitative change is received through the influence of the upper Light, through undergoing an intricate inner revolution. This takes many years because such changes occur in a person gradually, in small steps.
And even this is hard to take. It is much easier to advance with the group that you can hold onto. If a person holds onto the group with his eyes closed, he overcomes all the difficulties.
He closes the door on his old values and receives new ones from the group, from the unification of the friends, meaning the new Kli, where ten become as one: he receives a new mind and feelings, a new attitude, new measurement units.
It is a very delicate, difficult period about which it is written: “A thousand enter the classroom and only one exits into the Light.” You have to have plenty of patience for the upper Light to work on you and give you new qualities. When it is said: “Do anything but leave,” this is what it is talking about.
[222616]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/18, Talmud Eser Sefirot
May 3-6, 2018 will mark this year’s biggest spiritual event, the annual World Kabbalah Convention in Newark, New Jersey, and we’d love for you to join in the unforgettable connections and life-changing experiences that you’ll share with 100s of like-minded, friendly people.
Join us for up to 4 days filled with the deepest wisdom, lessons and workshops with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, as well as music, culture, meals, and most importantly, to be part of an indescribably remarkable and warm atmosphere that reveals itself when many people gather to experience the wisdom of Kabbalah.
You can complete a year’s worth of spiritual advancement in just a few days of a Kabbalah convention, since a Kabbalah convention contains all the means for spiritual progress in their optimal concentration. All it takes is the initial effort to do whatever you need to do to walk through the convention’s entrance, and then you’ll be swept into a supportive, warm and elated environment that aims to bring out the best in everyone – the common human desire to discover the meaning of life and our fundamental connection to each other – and we’re sure you’ll head home with a renewed sense of purpose and a muchdeeper understanding of yourself, others and the reality we share.
Now’s the time to claim your spot: Early bird tickets to the May 3-6 2018 World Kabbalah Convention are on sale now with a 20% discount, but this price won’t last.
Ticket prices will jump once our early bird discount ends on April 16, and they’re already selling fast.
Don’t miss out on 3 days of unforgettable connections and life-changing experiences – it really wouldn’t be the same without you.
Success depends on one’s connection to the group, since the environment provides us with many inner discernments that we no longer need to experience on our own. This is because we each include everyone within us, and if I am connected to ten other friends, I absorb all the personal states of each friend. Thus, I advance.
Our connection not only saves us time, without it I will never achieve spiritual birth. Starting with a single drop of semen, the growth of the body occurs through the multiplying of cells and their connection with each other. We call this development or growth. Everything depends on the connections between us.
It is good that we all are different, perceiving, understanding, and reacting differently. This gives us an opportunity to be included in one another above all the differences, thereby forming an integral vessel—the common desire, which is organized in a very complex, multilayered way, ready to receive the upper Light. After all, the revelation of the Creator cannot occur in one individual desire: it is too primitive, one-dimensional, and flat.
Therefore, we connect many different, opposite qualities together. From this diversity of connections and interconnected qualities (which wish to preserve their uniqueness while also being connected regardless of their differences), we create a complex spiritual vessel worthy of revealing the Creator.
This is why our connection to each other is so important; this connection is what builds the spiritual vessel (Kli). The Creator, the upper Light, fills all space. The problem is only in how to come to similarity to the Light from our egoistic desire, and how to accept it according to the similarity of our qualities.
This is achieved precisely through the multitude of contradicting qualities that, despite all differences, are connected to each other with one common goal: to reveal the Creator within our connection. Our connection to each other is called “the Creator” (Bore), which means “come and see” (Bo-Re).
Therefore, we should value the preparation that nature created, that is, the breaking of the common soul and the possibility of uniting different desires for the sake of one goal: the revelation of the Creator. Our unity allows us to create the form of connection that will be called the Creator.
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From the 1st Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/18, Writings of Rabash—Essays, Vol. 2, Article 19, “Come Unto Pharaoh”
The spiritual vessel (Kli) is not ten people, but a ten, which has become a single whole. To the extent that they can be included in the concept of “one,” they become a spiritual vessel. All our work is directed at this unity, and only by working on it do we begin to feel the obstacles that Pharaoh and his ministers put in front of us. The Creator purposely hardened their hearts to bring us to the understanding of what separation and unity are, as well as to help us achieve the qualitative unity in which the new state is revealed.
Everything is evaluated not by the group of ten people, but by its ability to unite into one whole. And the group becomes like one only if it has the connection with the upper force, besides which there is nothing else, and can concentrate all problems into one.
Therefore, we are always need a guarantee. Everyone receives his hardening of the heart at different times, in different ways, and everyone else helps him overcome it, as it’s written: “And he should help his friend.” There is never a situation when one is unable to help another, because one always has something that another lacks. Therefore, even if I am in a decline that I cannot come out of, I am still able to help another rise. After all, his heart is hardened in different ways.*
At first, a person works only for the reward that is customary in this world, meaning egoistic success, higher understanding, knowledge, to rule. Gradually, he acquires a different understanding of success, seeing its signs in how devoted he is to the group, and through the group how dedicated he is to the upper force. He considers his reward for all his efforts to be the ability he acquires to annul himself to the group and the upper force. This means that he is already working toward gaining desires for bestowal in order to move on to Lishma.
This is what the process of going through the Egyptian exile is all about from beginning to end. We enter Egypt with the desire to earn and succeed in our regular egoistic parameters. In reality, it corresponds to what Joseph is talking about. This is why we coexist so well with the Egyptians; all our desires to bestow work inside the desires of the Egyptians to receive. Egypt is prospering, the desire to receive is enjoying, and everything is fine!
Gradually, as a result of our work and the Creator’s influence on us, we start feeling our separation, the oppositeness. Our system of rewards changes and so does our understanding of work. Egyptian exile is a very special period, and that is why we remember Egypt on all the stages of our correction, up to the very end. **
At first we imagine spiritual success in ordinary egoistic terms and we feel a connection with Egypt. The previous stage called “the land of Canaan” already exhausted itself and was followed by a famine. And the next stage, “Egypt,” promises an ocean of pleasures. And therefore we descend into Egypt.
But gradually, through the hardening of the heart, the increased desire to receive, we understand that our work has to be different and that this is not unity. The main thing is that the Light that reforms is working on us, which changes us. We would never achieve success without it, because no matter how much we connect in egoistic desires, the only thing that comes out is pure egoism.
Therefore, all we need to do is carry out actions of unity, diligently following the advice of the Kabbalists. This is what is called the work in Egypt. Pharaoh organizes our work precisely to lead us to spirituality. We will feel that our egoism does not agree and it receives blows; we are unable to unite despite all our efforts.***
Try to work for the benefit of others, and you will see how easy it is. You will work to the extent that you can without worrying about anything. This instantly frees a person from numerous concerns, giving a sense of freedom. After all, you do what is needed, and not worry about the outcome, because it goes outside of yourself. In this case, the desire to receive does not limit the person. In this way you can outwit your egoism, which made us worry about ourselves.****
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/18, Writings of Rabash, Article 15, 1990, “What Does It Mean that Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry Was Not Answered in the Work?”
* (Minutes 34:00 – 36:44)
**(Minutes 36:44 – 39:36)
*** (Minutes 40:08 – 43:07)
**** (Minutes 45:00 – 46:26)
Question: Is it possible to express your disagreement with the opinion of the circle or should you only say something that does not go against it?
Answer: It depends on how you imagine your connection. It is possible that you could awaken some disagreement and then an interesting polemic and clarification would flare up. The main thing is that what you are doing should serve the purpose of rapprochement.
This can happen in very serious, hard, mutual clarifications. But if in the end we come to a greater rapprochement than at the beginning of the workshop, then this is already useful.
[221932]
From the Kabbalah lesson in Russian 10/22/17
Six months ago in Mexico there was a devastating earthquake and another one recently. In times of such disasters, people become very sensitive and seek unity. A good connection between people can create a better atmosphere in society and thus affect nature.
Nature in general consists of four levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and people who are on the top of this pyramid. If people achieve even a small amount of positive connection, it has a very powerful effect on all of nature’s lower layers, especially on the inanimate level where earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and typhoons occur.
We just need to correct ourselves a little—our attitude toward each other to bring peace and harmony to human society, and this will have a huge impact on inanimate nature, the environment and the Earth we live on. We can soothe all the lower layers of nature under humanity.
Human society has a very strong influence on nature in general. Presently we speak a lot about the fact that we have destroyed the ecology so much that the changes are irreversible and that life on Earth will soon become impossible. Indeed, we will be unable to live on Earth and this will force us to change the relationships between us. Then, nature will return to the corrected state.
Nothing disappears without a trace; it is possible to bring nature back to life from almost zero: disappearing species of animals and plants, melting glaciers. Nature in its entirety will return to equilibrium as soon as we balance our relationships.
[221961]
From the Kabbalah Lesson “Questions And Answers”, 2/18/18
Question: One of the important rules of the workshop is equality: “In the circle, there are no more or less important participants.” How is everybody equal?
Answer: Everybody is equal in relation to unity. The higher and the lower cannot unite. They must be on the same level.
In spirituality, connection is possible only according to the extent of similarity: you to me and I to you. One time—me to you, therefore I am higher and you are lower. Another time—you to me, therefore you are higher and I am lower. As a result, we are equal.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/22/17
In light of International Women’s Day, I was asked to give my take on gender equality from the perspective of the wisdom of Kabbalah.
To begin with, the idea of comparing men and women is just as wrong as comparing apples and oranges. Nature designed men and women as different creatures, both biologically and psychologically. Just as our bodies work in very different ways, we also think, feel and perceive the world differently.
Therefore, the attempt to make men and women one and the same is completely unnatural. By trying to judge men and women by the same standards, and equalize them as much as possible, it’s as if we are trying to “fix” nature. And nature doesn’t need any fixing.
Rather than trying to level the differences between men and women, we need to learn how to embrace them. We should aim for harmony – not equality. That is, we have to upgrade our view on gender equality to a more holistic approach, to see how it is precisely our differences that make us capable of complementing each other to create harmony.
The whole of nature works that way – unique and opposite qualities are woven together to create life – plus and minus, contraction and expansion, heat and cold, ebb and flow, male and female. In fact, I believe this is something that women understand a lot better than men, since they are generally more sensitive to nature than men.
On the practical level, I’m not saying that men and women can’t serve in the same roles in society. Examples such as Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel prove that a capable woman can find herself in a position that was typically occupied by a man. However, placing a woman in a certain position just because it makes things look more “equal” is foolish and won’t do any good to society.
For instance, when a steering committee is asked to have an equal amount of men and women for the sake of “equality,” it is a childish perception of equality that aims for political correctness rather than optimal results. A steering committee could have a majority of men or a majority of women, depending on what the committee needs to achieve, and what each person brings to the table – not how we can make a poster of equality.
Western society needs more education about how various systems of nature achieve harmony when differences come together. Then, we will see that what we should strive for in society is mutual complementation, which means highlighting the unique qualities of men and women, and weaving them together to achieve the best of both worlds.