Question: Today with us is Michael Laitman, PhD, and we are talking about Kabbalah. We are going to ask you about everything, because on the one hand you are a man of ancient wisdom, and on the other hand, a man of mystic knowledge. Kabbalah is mystic knowledge, isn’t it? And you were engaged in cybernetics and physics, as far as I know. Kabbalah is exact knowledge too, isn’t it? I want to understand what it is. I know that you have been studying the subject for decades and I have just been studying Kabbalah for ten minutes trying to understand what it is. I phoned some people to clarify the subject and they told me that Kabbalah is a particular work on mind structuring and on social forecasts as well.
M. Laitman: Yes, it is.
Question: And it is a particular work to prepare for the collapse that is awaiting the universe and humanity.
M. Laitman: Yes, that is true too.
Question: And what is this collapse?
M. Laitman: Shall I begin with this point? Okay. We are currently in a state in which it is being revealed that the whole of the world is gradually approaching a crisis, a general and all-embracing crisis in all fields of human activities. It is a crisis in science, art, literature, and family relationships. The crisis reveals itself in a huge number of suicides, depression, drugs and terrorism.
The reason for the crisis lies in the fact that humanity evolves through constant development of its egoism. We differ from animals by this continuous growth of our egoism. Throughout the seventy years of our life, it grows constantly and that is why we evolve. Our egoism grows from one generation to another. So Kabbalah appeared at the time when humanity felt the leap of egoism for the first time. It appeared as a science of the universe about 4,500 years ago in ancient Babylon, Mesopotamia.
Question: Did it appear only amongst Jews, or amongst all the peoples of the region?
M. Laitman: There were neither Jews nor other peoples at that time.
Question: Kabbalah is based on the Hebrew alphabet, isn’t it?
M. Laitman: No, Kabbalah originates from Aramaic, which was the spoken language in the cradle of civilization, in ancient Babylon, Mesopotamia, where the whole of humanity lived at that time. That outbreak of egoism is allegorically described as people’s desire to construct a tower with its top in heaven.
Question: They became arrogant.
M. Laitman: Yes, they became arrogant and they said: “We’ll be like the Creator,” and so on. But that is only an allegory. In fact Kabbalah appeared as a science just at that time. The first book on Kabbalah, called The Book of Creation, appeared at that time too. It is still available and we study it. The science of Kabbalah began in that period, and what is interesting, is that it speaks about the necessity of restraining egoism. It would have been better to restrain it just at the moment when it displayed itself for the first time.
But people didn’t follow that path. It is said in this science, and to be exact, in The Book of Zohar written in 2,500 years after the revelation of Kabbalah in ancient Babylon, that the science is concealed, and it will be concealed until humanity realizes that it is unable to move forward with the help of the development of egoism. On the one hand, people will realize that they live in one small global village, being absolutely dependent on each other. And on the other hand, they will discover and feel that they hate each other to such an extent that they are unable to get along within a family, a nation, a country, and so on. Then the crisis will occur, and the question of what we should do with ourselves will arise.
Question: Do you speak about the solidarity and mutual responsibility that members of society should develop?
M. Laitman: We reveal that from the science. You know, that was the most striking thing that brought me from bio-cybernetics to Kabbalah. If we examine a separate part of an organism, for example, a cell, we’ll see that the cell is egoistic in itself. But in order to coexist, each of them completely annuls itself for the sake of the needs of the entire body, and completely submits itself to it. In other words, every cell provides what the body needs.
Question: Are you a Marxist?
M. Laitman: No, I’m a materialist.
Question: When you talk about solidarity within a common super task, it sounds like communism, doesn’t it?
M. Laitman: No, it sounds very simple, because at the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels we exist in absolute balance with nature. And at these levels nature automatically and instinctively orders these elements of the inanimate, vegetative or animate levels to follow its instructions and to obey its laws. But at the level where we deal with our human egoism, or where I deal with myself and with society, we have no idea of the laws of nature. It seems to us that we can do everything we want there. And as a result, we get what we get. So Kabbalah reveals first of all the laws of nature at that level. It says that we have no place to hide and nature is absolutely altruistic at that level, too. So we’ll have to reach balance with nature.
Question: Does Kabbalah precisely predict that atomization of society is inevitable; and that it will result in collapse? Can we stop it?
M. Laitman: No, it’s not collapse. Collapse means that we should develop to a state in which we realize that it is impossible to go on living in such a way. Otherwise, we’ll follow a path of great blows and physical sufferings.
Question: Apparently I’m mistaken. From the point of view of physics, collapse occurs after compression, of course. Well, then it’s some bang.
M. Laitman: No. In other words, we should come to the realization of the necessity to change ourselves. Kabbalah says so.
Question: Do we have a chance to save ourselves?
M. Laitman: We not only have a chance, it will occur that way. We’ll not be able to destroy ourselves. Nature will not destroy us either.
Question: Do you make any predictions?
M. Laitman: Nature will only drive us, either by stick or by realization, to the state where we desire that. Thus Kabbalah is destined to bring us to that decision before we are taught through great and dreadful blows.
Question: Okay. Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but I’d like to understand the following. Kabbalists have never been the mainstream of Judaism.
M. Laitman: Kabbalah was never related to Judaism. If you ask faithful Jews you’ll see that they know nothing about Kabbalah, and they avoid it. Kabbalah is something that lies beyond everything, and it has nothing to do with Judaism. Judaism is just a collection of ancient cultural limitations for the people to observe. And that supports its existence, like any nation’s culture does. Judaism is nothing more than a cult.
Question: Is Judaism a moral maxim plus a religious ritual?
M. Laitman: Yes. Kabbalah is a science. It is just called Hochmat ha Kabbalah (the Wisdom of Kabbalah or the Wisdom of the Universe). It hasn’t any element of faith, it’s exactly the opposite. It is said: “Ein le Dayan ma she Einav Raot.” It means that everything should be perceived, examined, analyzed, recorded and compared with other person’s perceptions, and so on. In other words, Kabbalah is a pure science.
Question: So are you absolute knowledge seekers?
M. Laitman: We are.
Question: In particular I wanted to ask what Kabbalah says just about simple things. Do you remember the book by Mark Twain, in which the magician is asked: “What is the Chinese emperor doing at the moment?” And the magician tells him everything. But then he is asked: “What am I holding in my right hand behind my back?” And he doesn’t know the answer.
M. Laitman: I can say that there are such people, like for example Wolf Messing, nowadays too, and they can tell you about those things. But they are not Kabbalists. Kabbalah does not deal with those sorts of things. In other words there exist people of higher sensitivity who sense nature, or sense what occurs over dozens of thousands of kilometers. They are not Kabbalists; they simply work with their five senses in very subtle layers. Kabbalah develops the sixth sense.
Question: Why does Madonna study all that then? She belongs to your organization, doesn’t she?
M. Laitman: Well, this is not serious.
Question: Isn’t she your disciple?
M. Laitman: There are much more strong and serious disciples than she.
Question: I know there are. Nevertheless, Madonna is much talked about nowadays, as she is arriving soon.
M. Laitman: Well, yes, she is talked about in Moscow.
Question: I remind you that we are talking to Michael Laitman, PhD, a scientist and a Kabbalist, a professor in ontology and the theory of knowledge, a founder and president of the World Academy of Kabbalah and Kabbalah Research Institute. It’s a non-profit organization engaged in research and education activity in the field of Kabbalah.
M. Laitman: By the way, I’m not a publicity seeker but we educate in twenty two languages and we have disciples from more than forty countries all over the world.
I don’t like to speak about the celebrities studying in our Academy. A lot of people all over the world are keen on Kabbalah, including great and powerful people, if I can call them so. But this fact is not surprising.
Question: Don’t you like to speak about the most public people?
M. Laitman: I don’t. It’s just their private or even intimate affair, because a man asks a question. You know there is a book in Kabbalah which is called The Study of Ten Sefirot, for the entire universe consists of ten layers. So it is a large six-volume textbook written in a very serious academic style and contains graphics, drawings and the like. It comprises the description of the arrangement of all the worlds, including our world and the Upper World. It is said in the introduction, to whom this very serious and very complicated book is provided. I have already been studying it for about twenty seven or twenty eight years. It is said there: “It is provided for the man who asks: “What is the meaning of my life?”” It seems to be a somewhat childlike, simple, and frank question.
Question: And it’s the principal question too.
M. Laitman: Yes, it’s the principal question. And it’s very personal, too. That is why lots of great people all over the world, like the so called World Wisdom Council, of which I am a member, are also keen on Kabbalah. In fact a lot of people are keen on Kabbalah but they talk little about that.
Question: Okay, if you don’t want to talk about Madonna, let us talk about Mr. Kudrin then.
M. Laitman: I don’t teach those people and I’ll not discuss them.
Question: Won’t you?
M. Laitman: No, I can’t. I have no right to do that. I have a lot of appointments in Moscow now. But I shouldn’t speak about them.
Question: I know, you won’t tell us about those meetings. And we’ll begin hunting for you since we are journalists and paparazzi, you know.
M. Laitman: No, you won’t have any success.
Question: Really? Okay, let us break for the ads and then we’ll continue the attack.
In our studio we are talking to Michael Laitman, PhD, a Kabbalist, a professor in ontology and the theory of knowledge, a founder and president of the World Academy of Kabbalah and Kabbalah Research Institute.
It is a science that makes us tremble. In addition, a lot of very powerful people belong to that circle of associates, if I can say so, or are students who just dare to perceive. Isn’t it just that sinister world’s backstage force? Do you really have the world on a string and keep us in ignorance?
M. Laitman: Unfortunately nobody has the world on a string. It is evidently uncontrollable. But when Kabbalah is revealed, those who master it will be able to change our world. That is without question.
Question: I’d like to ask you another question that is asked by our listeners and I’m interested in it, too. Could you comment from the perspective on today’s war between Israel and Lebanon? In general, how is the situation in the Middle East developing?
M. Laitman: Oh, there is a perfectly simple explanation to this. The point is that Kabbalah was imparted to the world within the Jewish people, though those people also came from ancient Mesopotamia. It is written about Abraham that he was born and lived there and belonged to those people. Kabbalah emerged just in that place, and the first Kabbalistic group was organized from the people who lived there. It is said in the ancient Midrash, written at the times of Mesopotamia, that Abraham was an idolater. Suddenly he began to sense the Upper world and described it in his book called The Book of Creation. Today it is still for sale in any bookstore. Abraham organized the first Kabbalistic group. The Jewish people evolved from that group.
The people as a whole were not aware of either where they were moving or what was being carried within them. However single Kabbalists lived among the Jewish people throughout their entire history. Those Kabbalists still exist and wait for humanity to mature enough in order to be given the Book, and not only the Book but the method itself, the method of the real governing of the world. As a matter of fact, Kabbalah explains that anti-Semitism is caused by an instinctive sense in the peoples of the world that Jews have something they keep and do not give to other peoples, thus ruling the world. Jews, too, have a certain feeling of guilt toward the world. However none of them understand where the root of this phenomenon lies. The root lies just in fact that Kabbalah has to be revealed.
Question: I just wanted to hear about the war.
M. Laitman: As to the war, it’s very simple. Practically all the wars and all that occurs in the world is intended for bringing humanity again and again to that single result when it takes this method of achieving balance with nature, and fulfils it. That is why all the wars are conducted for this purpose. And regarding this war, of course it will also bring nothing. In the end, all the peoples of the world will have to achieve the state where they claim that knowledge. And then it will be revealed.
In fact Kabbalah is revealed. It is said in The Book of Zohar, written in second century AD, that in 1995 Kabbalah will have to be revealed; and until then, it must be concealed. Actually, since that time Kabbalah has become much in demand. We teach Kabbalah, and today it is studied at 1700 uiversities all over the world.
Question: Does this mean that if wars push humanity to the right knowledge, and stave off the wrong knowledge, they are good?
M. Laitman: Surely not, because we can achieve that through consciousness, and not through blows. This science is intended precisely for that purpose. But for that, we must widely disseminate and explain to people as soon as possible, that we can achieve real satisfaction and happiness through a very simple method; and we cannot do that through our ordinary egoism.
Question: You say that the method will be passed on when people mature. Do you mean that they are not ready to perceive a certain part of the knowledge?
M. Laitman: Today we disseminate. However, we do not yet see the sufficient number of people. I mean there are millions, but that is not enough. There is not yet a critical mass of people for nature to begin treating humanity kindly.
Question: Could we compare that to the relationship between adults and children? In particular, children are not ready for understanding many problems; they lack experience and a strong will, which they will gain later when they become adults; they lack breadth of perception, and horizons of vision.
M. Laitman: You see, first of all, Kabbalah is engaged just in opening your eyes. You shouldn’t believe in anything.
Question: But you say: “Ripen first, and after that, I’ll let you know.” Does this mean that we are to ripen through other means? What are those means?
M. Laitman: You should say, “I have to perceive this world and my life.” And when you begin studying Kabbalah, you begin to reveal forces lying behind matter.
Question: But if we compare this relationship with the relationship between adults and children, we can say that after they ripen, Kabbalah is revealed to them. You have three children, haven’t you?
M. Laitman: Yes, I have.
Question: And until they ripen, we just guide them, that’s all. So Kabbalists rule all of us who are not yet ripened, don’t they?
M. Laitman: No, and that’s just the point: Kabbalists are unable to rule. It is like an adult who sees the child’s mistakes but is unable to help him.
Question: Is it r early so?
M. Laitman: Of course, it is. Unfortunately, that’s the real state of affairs. The only thing I’d like to stress is that Kabbalah reveals to you what forces lay behind matter. You start seeing through this world and the sixth sense develops in you. You start seeing the forces and connections that lie behind the objects of our world. And then there is no need to convince you of anything. You start to realize that if you act this or that way, it will be good or bad, and how it will return to you and to others.
Question: Is that ethnic or general knowledge?
M. Laitman: It is based on the sixth sense or on our inner information layer.
Question: OK, can anyone like, for example, Arafat who is already deceased, or sheikh Nasralla comprehend Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: Of course, he can.
Question: Hasn’t he matured yet?
M. Laitman: He hasn’t, like many others, including those who are less wicked than he is. However, Kabbalah does not divide people.
Question: Are there any nations that are more ripened for Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: No. I have just returned from the congress in Chile, and before that I was in Toronto, in Dusseldorf, and in Tokyo. We hold studies and congresses in different countries of the world. So it could be an Italian hairdresser, it could be Russian Landau, or anyone else.
Question: Let us return to the Middle East problem. The situation is the following. There is a small state, Israel, with its own unique culture and identity, to a certain degree, different from its surroundings.
M. Laitman: It’s absolutely different.
Question: I remember that in Haifa, I was treated to some delicious and awfully tasty food that looked like window lute or some paste.
M. Laitman: That is humus.
Question: Oh, yes, it was. And that dish is served in Turkey too. I mean Israel’s culture is not completely different from the region, is it? I think it is different only to a certain degree.
M. Laitman: I’d say that it is absolutely different.
Question: No, it is different only to a certain degree. There is still some similarity. You see, I always thought that Arafat had a notable Jewish appearance.
But when we speak about those things, we see a great number of unemployed young men who are not integrated into any positive and constructive activities, and are ready to fight against Israel—the state of different culture. Do you really believe they will suddenly start seeing things clearly?
M. Laitman: Israel will wake up itself. Do you think that Israel is less responsible for what is going on than its Arab surroundings?
Question: Tell us more about that.
M. Laitman: The Book of Zohar speaks about that quite clearly. It was written two thousand years ago that as soon as Jews wished to return to their own land, their brothers (you know, the Arabs are not cousins, they are just brothers, because in the East the line of parentage goes through father, so they all have one father) would put obstacles in their way until both of them, Jews first, would attain the level of awareness and lead the world to its correct realization and to the good state of existence.
Question: Don’t you think that the world is moving toward a nuclear war?
M. Laitman: That’s not important. People will ripen anyway.
Question: Do you mean that the Arabs left in Buenos Aires, and Jews left in New York will become conscious? But it will be late.
M. Laitman: It won’t. Because we take into account not the number of physical bodies, but the number of souls that have to finish this large life cycle of humanity and achieve correct existence. At the spiritual or human level we have to achieve the same state of balance with nature (like all other levels).
Question: We are spoiled with the venom of humanism and we think that the number of people still plays a certain role, doesn’t it?
M. Laitman: It doesn’t. The number of people in our world depends only on the power of man’s egoism. Humanity’s egoism grows and it must be divided into a greater number of souls or a greater number of physical bodies, and that is why they reproduce.
Question: I’m interested in your theory, as it belongs to a person who was engaged in natural sciences such as bio-cybernetics, biology and others. You graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, you were born in Vitebsk. To what extent does your current knowledge adjust with what you were learning in the Institute? The second question, which is important for me, is the following: to what extent does the knowledge gained in Kabbalah adjust with Far-Eastern teachings, like for example with Christianity? Though as regards to Christianity, it comes from the same root, there is no question, since you have already answered about Judaism.
M. Laitman: There isn’t any connection, either with Christianity or Judaism.
Question: And what about the religions that started with Abraham?
M. Laitman: These are religions, so they involve beliefs. Kabbalah is a science.
Question: Okay, let us try to bind it to occult practices, and in particular, to Taoism. Won’t that do?
M. Laitman: No, they are just spiritual techniques a man is engaged in.
Question: OK. Then after the news we’ll go on teasing you. Agreed?
So we’re continuing. We are talking to Michael Laitman, PhD, a Kabbalist, a professor in ontology and the theory of knowledge, a founder and president of the World Academy of Kabbalah and Kabbalah Research Institute. It’s awfully interesting. Thank you, professor. To a certain extent I feel myself absolutely clarified, really.
M. Laitman: I feel slight irony in your words.
Question: Don’t say so! There isn’t any, really! Still tell me please, how all of that fits in with you as a scientist who was engaged in biology and medical cybernetics.
M. Laitman: That was precisely what brought me to Kabbalah. While studying how a living organism is regulated, I saw that it consists of marvelous and wonderful elements, and systems being in coordination with one another. However, the purpose for which the whole of the organism exists, is still a puzzle to us. Nature doesn’t create anything in vain. We are created and literally weaved of miracles. But the purpose we ourselves are created for remains unclear.
If such a serious and wonderful system exists, there must be a purpose for its existence. However, we don’t see that. So I started investigating precisely that essential question. It was extremely important for me.
Question: Could you compare Kabbalah with religions that come from Abraham? I mean Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
M. Laitman: No. Kabbalah emerged 4,500 years ago in ancient Babylon, and all the other religions appeared 2,000 years ago. With the destruction of the Second Temple in Judea, today’s popular and well-known Judaism appeared. And the other religions originated from it, as its branches.
Question: So they have nothing in common with Kabbalah.
M. Laitman: They do not.
Question: And what about Taoism?
M. Laitman: Oriental religions appeared as a result of Mesopotamian faiths that existed at the period when Kabbalah emerged. But they all rely on suppressing and diminishing egoism. It means that you should eat less, think less, breathe less, think of one thought, or sit in one position, and so on. All of them are based on lowering a man from the human level to the animate, and even the vegetative, or inanimate levels. And then a man naturally feels himself better; but for all that, he is stops being a man in the true sense of the word. Kabbalah is in complete contrast to all of them.
Question: However, in Taoism too, there is social forecasting and problems of mind structuring.
M. Laitman: Undoubtedly there is. But Kabbalah says that egoism has to be developed; it should only be used in a correct way. That is why it is called “the science of Kabbalah” (the science of receiving).
Question: Is it like Tchernyshevsky’s rational egoism?
M. Laitman: No, it’s much greater. It’s our most dreadful egoism.
Question: Let us return to the current questions. “Don’t you think that if today Madonna is the most devoted and advanced Kabbalah disciple, that this benefits society?”
M. Laitman: No, I don’t think that she is the most advanced [laughter]Kabbalist of our time. Actually, all the Kabbalah studies by people like Madonna are not serious. The thing they study is not real Kabbalah, but something for self-comfort.
Question: What is your attitude towards Madonna’s creative work?
M. Laitman: I don’t have any attitude. I just don’t know her creative work.
You should understand that here we deal with science. We exist within a certain portion of the universe. We sense it with our five senses and that is not enough for us. We cannot predict or sense any sudden event that happens because we still lack of senses for that. Kabbalah develops in us that additional sense, with the help of which we see the whole picture. It is a serious method and a serious science that speaks about interaction in the full volume of the universe, with all governing forces that we currently don’t feel yet. Madonna has nothing to do with it.
Question: I’d like to ask you whether it is possible to study Kabbalah without learning Hebrew.
M. Laitman: It is absolutely possible. As a matter of fact, Kabbalah comes from Aramaic, which was the reverse side of Hebrew and the spoken language of ancient Mesopotamia. Hebrew appeared as a derivative from that language. Today Kabbalah is studied in all the languages of the world. As I have already said, our teaching is carried on in 22 languages, and my books are published in 9 languages. So you may begin.
Question: But what do you think of the translation to the English language?
M. Laitman: I publish books in English, too. I give lectures in American universities, and we are engaged in joint researches together with plenty of American scientists and Kabbalists. Of course, the terminology remains the same as in the original source, but everything else is only connections or expressions that…
Question: They say that in Kabbalah you count letters in a book, and then you multiply these letters by something continuous and so on. But the alphabet must not be English for that purpose.How should we multiply the alphabet?
M. Laitman: You are right. The point is that we were given the key in Aramaic letters of course. And you can’t do anything with that fact. The letter’s form itself conveys certain properties. Every letter is like a hieroglyph that conveys a certain idea or spiritual property. Therefore it is possible to transform it to other letters, but you have to oppose several English letters to that letter.
Question: “Has Kabbalah anything in common with the Pythagorean school?”
M. Laitman: Well, for example, a famous German medieval philosopher Johann Reichlen wrote in a very simple way that Pythagoras and all ancient Greek philosophers were Kabbalists’ disciples and they were founders of philosophy which means “Kabbalah.”
Question: Was Pythagoras aware that he was a disciple?
M. Laitman: Yes, Pythagoras knew.
Question: Really?!
M. Laitman: I’ll show you the sources that are not Judaic or Kabbalistic.
Question: I thought that Pythagoras developed his conception on his own.
M. Laitman: No. The whole of the philosophy comes from more ancient teachings, and they all are based on Kabbalah.
Question: Is it true that only men after thirty can study Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: Before 1995, only men after forty could study Kabbalah. But nowadays, absolutely every person can study it, including you. We started our broadcast with the conversation about crisis. We reached such a state when egoism increased so much in everybody, that today the situation demands some solution. Throughout the entire history of humanity, Kabbalah was concealed and only selected people could study it.
Question: Why did such restrictions exist?
M. Laitman: Because there was nothing to correct, since egoism was still in the process of developing. It’s today that we have reached the last level of egoism and are experiencing its outbreak.
Question: What does your science say about Russia?
M. Laitman: Russia is very susceptible to Kabbalah. Despite the greatness of egoism here in Russia, it exists in a certain combination with the inner desire for looking deep inside oneself, for self-knowledge, and for sensing the world from inside out. This is a peculiarity of the peoples that live here. I know that very well, as I am from this country myself. And I hope that Kabbalah will find very serious disciples here and will be able to realize itself correctly.
Question: Professor, when I was earning my diploma at the university, a professor of mathematics from Peoples' Friendship University came to our humanitarian faculty. I found that in natural sciences, they think that everything can be calculated. And he was going to quantify all the speech phenomena, such as slips of the tongue, stutters, etc. But how can we quantify human’s life?
I want to ask you a question that you may consider that of an insolent and ignorant person. Doesn’t the natural science scholar take the blame upon himself, supposing that absolutely everything can be quantified, while life is infinite?
M. Laitman: You are absolutely right. A man is a sensible creature, not a calculating one. However, if we know what lies beyond our senses, we are able to calculate them somehow, to rule them and see what makes us move forward. Today all scientists say that we have such and such hormones. It means that everything is programmed in us beforehand and I choose nothing by myself. So alongside the senses, it is desired to give a man a possibility of rational governing of his senses.
More than once, I spoke about balance with nature. Balance is a correct use of sense and reason. Against our egoism, our motives, instincts, etc., Kabbalah gives us an opportunity to understand why all that occurs in us, and what it is based on. It gives us an opportunity to graduate and measure all that, and to oppose one thing to another. And then a man begins to act harmoniously and correctly.
Question: Should a Kabbalist be an ascetic? Can he think about different pleasures, about women, for example?
M. Laitman: On no account he shouldn’t be an ascetic. On the contrary, he must use the whole of his egoism, only he must use it correctly. Everything that nature created in us is necessary. If we knew how to work with all that, we would see and feel how bad it is to harm each other, we would see that we are elements of one system, and are connected with each other. If we saw the circulation of souls and what happens with us before birth and after death, we would certainly act in another way.
Question: Not all natural science professors come to Kabbalah. Some of them continue to quantify the world, and in fifty years they will quantify an individual and remove it to the Internet. You will be saving the world that doesn’t exist. Individuals will live on the Internet.
M. Laitman: But those professors live in this world, too.
Question: That’s not a joke. They just live on the Internet, while you are saving them.
M. Laitman: No, no, a man will have no place to hide. He will feel the need to rise to a higher level of existence. Within our world, within our life, there isn’t any purpose for why we exist and act. The fact that today a question about the meaning of life arises in humanity, shows us that people need to learn for what purpose they live. So I think that we’ll have to quantify, but at the same time, the soul must remain in its place.
Question: I suppose the first thing to happen to a quantified man, with his soul removed to the Internet, will be his meeting with a Kabbalist there.
M. Laitman: Of course, we use the Internet. Our entire work among people all over the world is carried out through the Internet. 800,000 people study the system of Kabbalah on the Internet, but still we need both heart and soul.
Question: So there exists a moral core. You have just said: “You should develop your egoism.” And I was ready to roll to the whirl of addiction to morphine and debauch.
M. Laitman: No, no, no, when you see how to use your egoism in a correct way, you see that from the very beginning, all your inclinations were given to you precisely for that correct purpose. The only thing you need to do is to try to discover the way of correct realization. That is just what nature demands from us. And that is the reason why it pushes us toward that point of perception by means of sufferings.
Question: Our listeners ask what the Russian Orthodox Church thinks of Kabbalah.
M. Laitman: I don’t know. But I don’t think that it will negatively react toward the Kabbalah that I represent, because it’s a science. There isn’t any connection either with Judaism or…
Question: In other words there isn’t any contradiction here, is there?
M. Laitman: There cannot be. There can be a certain contradiction when a person doesn’t understand and associates Kabbalah with Judaism or anything else. Well, you may like or hate any science this way. Do you understand? Today people simply do not understand what Kabbalah is.
Question: Does it mean that an orthodox can study Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: Look, in our World Academy study…
Question: “What does “studying Kabbalah” mean? Is that a special technique, meditation, mathematical text formulas, or should you sit under an apple tree and think about the essence of existence?”
M. Laitman: No, you should only take the books. I don’t want to push my books but dozens of them are published in Russia. You can read the books, you can contact us on the Internet and get any free advice, and thus study. The entire world will be opened before you.
Question: Just imagine that some hermit is calling up now. Do you have any hermits or ascetics in Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: No, they have no place in Kabbalah.
Question: “Not long ago something happened to the Israeli leader Ariel Sharon. I’m not sure whether he fell ill or died. A man cried out on TV: “I’m a Kabbalist. Seven of us gathered, said our prayers for something to happen to him because he did a lot of harm.” How can that be possible?”
M. Laitman: It is absolutely impossible, my dear, because Kabbalah is a science. I just don’t know how to explain this in a simple way. Kabbalah is engaged in investigation of the world and realization of man’s egoism to the good. It’s impossible for a man to make things worse. Unfortunately they just use Kabbalah for selling red strings and making different charms, like the so called well-known “pulsa de nura,” etc. They just frighten people. Real Kabbalah has nothing to do with all those things.
Question: “How is Kabbalah related to Torah?”
M. Laitman: Kabbalah bears no relation to Torah, because in the form you all read it, Torah is no more than a historical document. If you take The Book of Zohar, The Book of Creation, or the books by Ari you will see diagrams, tables, calculations and formulas. In other words, Kabbalah deals with revelation of the world’s information layer that lies beyond our natural corporeal objects.
Question: Revelation or structuring? For me it’s an important question that has something in common with our listener’s last question. If you are able to structure something without conjuring with red strings, but you are able to show a certain path, a vector or a paradigm to the world, then you are able to structure. It’s just as if you throw a crystal nucleus, and it starts to shape, isn’t it?
M. Laitman: There isn’t any force in the world that can change a man, except his desire. In all other respects we are complete robots. We are pressed for time at the moment but all that is described in my books. We do nothing in our world. The only free act we have is a desire to do good.
Question: Could you reveal that crumb, or the beginning of the act beforehand?
M. Laitman: That is precisely what I try to do through my educational activities.
Question: Well, you do something, at least. Otherwise, what is the purpose for all that, if you do nothing?
M. Laitman: Sure.
Question: Fine. Since there isn’t enough mysticism, we’re not going to become Kabbalists.
M. Laitman: We’ll be waiting for you at the next turning-point.
Question: Thanks a lot for air time and for taking part in our program. This is “Echo Moskvy.”