Question: This week there was a lot of noise about the financial situation in the US, the decrease of the dollar and the crash of the bank. Some people say it will cause a snowball that will start rolling and crash everything. Some other says that it will all pass away. What does Kabbalah predict about the financial system?
Michael Laitman: It is not about the financial system. Simply put, the more we advance the further away we move from nature. The nature around us is a nature of bestowal and love, and globalization and interconnection. The whole of nature is basically one body, and we are integrated in nature. Even though we do not feel ourselves connected to nature, we are connected to it.
We see lately that as much as we examine nature, all parts of nature are interconnected, and we are parts of it as well. It turns out that in nature, there is a law; like in a body, each part is connected to all the others and each part has to provide the needs for all the other parts and receive what it needs. That balance between all the parts, like in every uniformed system, is the one integral law in nature. We don’t know that law; the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that law to us, but we don’t know it that much. Much less do we want to get to know it or to carry it out, we have no interest in it, and this is what we see.
Therefore, we receive blows and beatings. Since we have advanced to such a great level of egoism that makes us opposed to nature, on the global scale we start experiencing very harsh beatings. It is because weresist that law of nature of bestowal and love and interconnection of all the partsglobally.
Moderator: When you’re talking about beatings from the global nature are you talking about Tsunami’s and hurricanes?
M. Laitman: Everything that we experience in ecology and economy, everything.
Moderator: Economy? How does economy relate to nature?
M. Laitman: Economy is the connection between human beings, and the connection between human beings has to adhere to the same law that exists in nature. The law of reciprocity is that we have to exist as in one system. Since we do not know or realize that law, we resist carrying it out; and, as a result, we are bitten by it. It is like with every law of nature; if I do not know there is a law of gravity, and I jump off the tenth floor, I will fall.
Not knowing the law does not exempt me from being affected by it.
Moderator: Yes but in this situation it’s understood that the law of gravity affects us, its nature. However, when the stock exchange falls or the dollar decreases, how does it connect to nature?
M. Laitman: Money is the connection between all of us. It is the measure and common value we all share. The societies, governments, countries, people, and even in families, it is the most powerful and active connection between us that changes the situations. Recently, we came to a state where it has started to crash. This is because in our international connections, we have reached the state where we are really as one system. On the other hand, we are so opposed to nature because all of us are egoist. We all want only our own self benefit and the same with every country and every person.
Nature works the opposite way trying to bring about balance among all the systems and their parts and make them work together as one system, as is the case with the human body, in order to keep its well being. Our international social connection is based on economics in contrast to the connection that exist in nature that works completely to watch for the balance between all its parts. It turns out that we are opposed to it and therefore our human systems are starting to fall.
Moderator: Let’s see if I understood what you are saying and I will try to summarize it. You’re saying that the law of existence that we see in every system of nature is a law of reciprocity and balance and interconnection.
M. Laitman: It is called globalization. We all are interconnected. It's like the butterfly effect, if you heard about it. If there is change in one place it affects the whole system.
Moderator: And that is the law of existence in nature?
M. Laitman: Yes, that each part is connected to the others. We are turning each other like cogwheels; each wheel turns and affects the others; even more so, when we are talking about this economic system. It turns out that within that system we are all interconnected as cogwheels according to that general law, whether it is the banks, societies, everything.
This existence and our model of the economic systems are opposed to nature. It does not work according to the same formula of nature; it all works egoistically for self benefit, and nature works in an opposite way.
Moderator: So there is some friction between how we are supposed to act.
M. Laitman: Not even a friction but complete opposite and it increases until it explodes. This is the beginning of the process that we are now witnessing.
Moderator: You are saying this is the beginning of it and it sounds very bad.
M. Laitman: Yes, of course, it will not be better. Perhaps, by all kinds of action, we can sweeten our situation in the meantime but over time, like The Book of Zohar explains to us, the process brings about a general crash of all the egoistic systems; the systems that are anti nature, which we have created since the time of ancient Babylon.
Moderator: Do you have any advice to give to the economists?
M. Laitman: It is like in physics: we learn the nature’s laws, and then we can know how to use them correctly. Same thing here; we have to learn the law of nature that forces us to identify with it, to adhere to it and to equalize with it.
Moderator: Can I ask something practical?
M. Laitman: I am telling everyone to study the wisdom of Kabbalah. It tells us about the general law that is called nature or the Creator (in Gematria, the 'nature' and the 'Creator' have the same numerical value). We have to study that law because we have no choice but to be balanced with nature, to come closer to it and to adhere to it.
Nothing else will help us as humanity has grown to such a dimension that this is the only choice we have left. From now on, we can do it by either increasing beatings and suffering or understanding it; one way or another we will have to carry out this law.
The wisdom of Kabbalah says, “That’s it; we have come to a very special state like it was written in The Book of Zohar.” And the greatest Kabbalist wrote about it that at the end of the 20th century we have to start studying these laws and realize them.
Question: If I understood correctly the picture of this world is, actually, an inner picture depicted within us and the souls and the Creator is the one thing that exists. But does that perception makes us ignore the still, vegetative, and animate that are around us since animates are alive and also have desires?
M. Laitman: That is a very hard question and I would not, normally, answer this type of question on this show because it is complicated to explain in the short time that we have.
A person has to relate to all parts of creation in a way that he understands that all these parts are rising with him toward correction. All the systems of nature—still, vegetative, animate and speaking—have to reach a balance between them and an interconnection where they all are included within one system, and man can use all parts of nature and correct himself. By his correction, all the other parts become corrected as well.
In other words, if he eats meat, it is permitted; however, he has to watch over them and guard the environment. Along with it, he advances in his inner correction, correction of the soul, and the entire parts rise along with man, as it is written in The Book of Zohar “And all the parts rise along with man.”
Question: What is the meaning of the name Esther the Queen and the Purim holiday? Also, are the Iranians who want to destroy us today the same Persians who wanted to destroy us then? In the past we had Haman and today we have Akmadinijad. The problem is that we don’t have Esther the Queen to save us from the villains.
M. Laitman: Esther, the Queen comes from the word Esther, concealment of the Malchut which is a special force in nature that connects us to the Upper Force, the Upper most force there is, the Creator. The force that connects us to it, is a feminine force, Esther the Queen. It works through concealment and tells Mordechai, the Jew within us, that we have to fast, like today, on this holiday and pray to get a solution to our desperate state.
Similarly, when we stand against this cruel nature —the external and the internal Akmadinijads—actually we have to correct ourselves. When we will want to do that, then there will be a special force within us that will help us transcend our internal egoistic nature and achieve love of man.
This is what we lack, actually. In this force of love of man, if it will burst in us and will spread through other people, we will be able to win all the Akmadinijad, the same way it was in ancient Persia, will be with the modern Persians.
Moderator: What is that Akmadinijad that is within us that you talked about?
M. Laitman: The ego, Amalek or Haman Hagagi is, basically, the same thing. It is the evil within us that does not let us transcend and reach love, transcend the unfounded hatred among us.
It is a force within each of us. The external force is a replica of what is inside of us and therefore, we have to correct ourselves within and, in accordance with this, the external forces will disappear.
Moderator: What is Esther the Queen that is inside of us?
M. Laitman: Esther the Queen is the connection between us and the Creator. That desire that we evoke in order for the Light to correct us, the Light that reforms, the Light of Torah. So the desire for this is called ‘Esther the Queen;’ it is concealed within us, but we have to discover it.
Question: Why don’t we have enough water? Is there a reason for this?
M. Laitman: The water problem is a world-wide general problem; there will be a big problem soon. They say that wars may start due to the water supply in the world. The problem is that we treat everything in the world in a very cruel way.
In order to produce a cup of coffee, we need 150 liters of water. Because we have to grow the coffee, process and nurture it, and ground it; it is not just a cup of water we add to our coffee. If we calculated how much water we spent for everything (the books we publish, the table we make), it turns out that we use a lot of water for everything we produce. Therefore, we see that the same cup of water I am drinking now is not just a cup of water. In order to drink that cup of coffee, I wasted 100 cups of water before. If you translate all the production processes to the amount of water we use, then you will see how much water we waste.
Moderator: So are you suggesting we don’t drink coffee?
M. Laitman: No, I am suggesting we calculate how we behave with respect to nature, and see if we can allow ourselves all types of technological ways that makes us spend a lot of water.
Moderator: If we find other solutions, will this solve the problem?
M. Laitman: Yes, first because we will save and mostly because we will start treating nature in a general way, that we and nature are the same thing. Then we will discover that nature is not just nature, but it is, actually, the Creator, the law of mutual dependency and guarantee and love, and we have to be in an inner negotiation with it. We will start feeling nature and discover that it is the Upper force, and that it is alive and something that we can rise with to a level beyond our corporeal life. That I don’t just live in my body but live in the integral life of this world and beyond this world, the Upper world as well.
Through these calculations with nature in this world, we can penetrate to the Upper nature, the Creator. The beatings, we have been experiencing lately, are starting to show us that we have no choice, we need that connection.
Moderator: Once I heard you say that the abundance and resources that earth provides us with, are today, much depleted because we are opposing to nature; we are in our ego and nature is love and giving. And you also said that if we correct ourselves, our ego to love and giving and bestowal, then we will receive from nature much more supplies and resources. And that means more water and growth and yield from the ground.
M. Laitman: When we will feel nature better, we will know how to use it correctly—how to use it, where to use it, and where not to use it. We will change ourselves.
It is not that we will be able to extract more water than what we have and, suddenly, discover new oceans under the earth, but it will change us as well. The way we will treat nature and instead of grabbing everything in a barbarian way and consume things without criticism, we will change and reach balance. All the parts of nature to begin with are in balance and man is the part that violates the balance.
Moderator: How does it violate the balance by wanting to drink a cup of coffee? I want to drink a cup of coffee every morning. By the fact that I want to buy a book did I violate the balance?
M. Laitman: No, but the fact that we have evolved in such a way for thousands of year is okay. However, today we have reached a state where we are all against nature. We have to study the laws of nature and know in what way to drink coffee and in what way behave toward nature and with what thoughts to relate to nature.
Moderator: What do you mean specially thoughts?
M. Laitman: Because nature is completely bestowal and love, we have to relate the same way to each other and to nature as well.
Moderator: This will influence our water if we have water or not?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Moderator: Will this increase the water reserves that we have? Today they say that we have gone below the water line.
M. Laitman: Yes, it will increase it. It is written even in the Torah. There is no problem; there is enough water in the world. First of all, man has to change his relationship to the world, and then he will suddenly discover that he has all the natural resources he needs.
Moderator: I am a bit confused. I heard two directions from you and, two of them, we have to carry out. Let us put them in a way that they will be understood by the viewers. First direction is that we should make our use of water more effective. Meaning research technologically how we can use less water to produce all that we consume—books, cups of coffee, whatever.
M. Laitman: Yes,on the face of Earth in a simple technological way.
Moderator: Okay and I assume that people do these researches without the wisdom of Kabbalah as well.
M. Laitman: Yes but there is no one that will start activating them.
Moderator: Okay, this is one of the horizons of your recommendations and the next one is the change?
M. Laitman: Yes,the next one is the inner change of me with respect to nature. It’s similar to an enemy that wants to come and kill me. So, if the enemy is coming to me immediately, should I just pray? No, I have to fight corporeally as well on the face of Earth and treat it corporeally and along with it, I have to treat all of that spiritually. Why does it happen to me on behalf of nature? It is because I am not in balance with it.
Moderator: The second plan you talked about was an inner change of man with respect to nature. What exactly is nature: the water, the trees, the animals, my neighbors?
M. Laitman: The force of giving and love that relates to us, simply “love thy neighbor as thy self” that is the general rule of the Torah; the Torahmeans the general law of reality. If we among us…
Moderator: Among people or among Jews?
M. Laitman: Among us, Jews, I am talking about the people of Israel now. If we would come back to the state that we previously existed in before the destruction of the Temple, when we were in brotherly love instead of unfounded hatred, which we are in until today, if we could come back to that state of brotherly love, love of Israel, then we would rise in the spiritual level among us, and we would come back to the state where no enemy would influence us.
Moderator: How would it influence the water in Africa?
M. Laitman: We would carry out nature’s instruction as being the light of the world, of the nations, and we would show the method to all of the nations and save the world by that. We will have to do that, there is no choice. The Book of Zohar details it in a very clear way.
Moderator: Will there be water in Africa because of that?
M. Laitman: Yes, in the entire world and everyone will live peacefully and happily. How will we reach that? Either we’ll get to it through wars, beatings and suffering, which is called Baeto (in its time), or opening our eyes and hastening our path and reaching that pleasantly and fast, that is called by way of hastening time, Ahishena. Both are now right in front of us; these two paths, these two options.
Question: Today, Bin Laden the terrorist promised that Europe would be punished for the comics about Mohammad, and he blamed the Pope for waging a crusade war against Islam. Where is this fight between Islam and Christianity going? Does Kabbalah relate to it?
M. Laitman: You can open The Book of Zohar, item 30, in the Corrections chapter. There are many writings about it and besides, many have written about it based on The Book of Zohar. In addition to what is written about the end of days, we see that it is the struggle between Islam against Israel and then against Christianity that is in Europe, and then it unites with Russia and then comes to us and comes to Europe. The whole process is detailed there.
I do not think it can be stopped unless we advertise the wisdom of Kabbalah and what is in front of us in a way that people will hear and accept the story seriously and understand that we stand before a very serious struggle of the forces of nature. The left line and the right line, the right Klipa (shell), the left Klipa, and the middle line, which is Israel precisely in the middle, in the middle of these two forces.
Due to that, we might be able to understand what to do. The truth is that we will be in the middle of these struggles that are meant to bring us to advancement.
Moderator: What are all these terms you mentioned—right line, left line, right Klipa, left Klipa? Maybe you can say it in terms that people can understand.
M. Laitman: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the right Klipa is Ishmael and the left Klipa is Christianity.
Moderator: What are these things?
M. Laitman: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the forces of nature. On the right, there is Ishmael and on the left is Eisav and Jacob is the middle line. Therefore, the struggles are between these forces of Ishmael and Eisav, and we are in the middle. Jacob is Israel; Yaakov is in a small level and Israel is in a large level. Even though they struggle, we are in the middle. We have to take the middle line in the most precise and accurate way. The middle line means we have to reach unity among us, meaning love among us and thereby, reaching connection with the Creator, adhesion with Him, thing that is possible through the wisdom of Kabbalah.
As it is said, “They will all know Me from the least to the greatest one.” We have to attain Him to understand Him. Not just to learn some Torah that we do not really use, but we have to reveal the Creator and the revelation of the Creator to the creatures is exactly the topic of the wisdom of Kabbalah . That is the definition of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the revelation of the Creator to the creatures in this world. If we do that, then we will neutralize these forces that operate on us, and they will arrange between themselves, and they will be for our own good.
This is like what the prophet explains that the nations of the world will carry Israeland bring them toJerusalem . They will help us reach spirituality. However, if we do not do this correct action in the middle, then, unfortunately, there will be a coercive force.
Question: You are always talking about the connection between the Creator or the unity of man and God, and doing good to each other or performing the will of the Creator so He will do good to us. On the other hand, you say that the most important thing in the Torah, the greatest rule of the Torah, is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” First, I would like to know, what comes first?
M. Laitman: That is the same thing. Connection to the Creator or “love thy neighbor as thyself” is the same connection, only practically, it divides into two: from the love of the creations to the love of the Creator. First of all, in the framework of a group and the whole nation of Israel is a group that was put together by Abraham in ancient Babylon. When he revealed the wisdom of Kabbalah, he opened his tent, he started accepting students, he explained to them the wisdom of Kabbalah, and they all followed him.
Then there was a group that throughout time the people of Israel was created from. This is how we exist; basically, as a group of Kabbalists that Baal HaSulam explains to us that Abraham founded us and raised us. Therefore, he is called the father of the nation. There was no such nation before he put it together from his students and, therefore, we have to follow that principle that he said about “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Love, Hesed is the quality of Abraham. If we will have this principle working in the middle among us, then we will also reach connection with the Creator. Because, eventually, the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals the Creator to man that a person connects to Him, Elokim and adheres to Him. Not like the concealment, which we are in today, this exile, but we have to reveal Him, and live in deliverance, and in the same law, the same relations of giving and love—that are the Creator’s character—between us, also with the Creator. This is what we have to reach. And so it is realized in the people and thus, through this, we reach connection with the Creator.
Question: What is Ein Sof (Infinity) in Kabbalah and how can we perceive that term because our perception is limited and we always describe things in a limited way?
M. Laitman: That is right, perceiving Infinity is a contradiction. How can I do that? Infinity is not like how a person usually depicts, it is not infinite width or infinite weight because it is out of our boundaries; infinity is imperceptible.
However, infinity in the wisdom of Kabbalah is a very tangible thing that we attain. Why? It comes from the words Ein Sof (Infinity). No boundary to what? No boundary to the desire, to the fulfillment of the desire. Why? For instance, if I take this cup and fulfill it to its end, then it means that this cup is in a state of no end (infinity), it’s endless. Why? I filled it to its full capacity. If we fill our desire to its greatest extent, when it can’t receive anything else, then it is in the aspect called Ein Sof.
Question: Kabbalah explains that we have to come back to the One that is before the breakage, what is that One? How can one be One alone, by itself? Won’t there be a breakage and reincarnations again and again? How can we imagine that there is only one soul in this whole universe?
M. Laitman: I am very happy that I got to a time when women ask through the phone what is the breakage and One and all of that. Twenty years ago, people would never ask about these things, so thank you for the question, first.
'One' means that we connect as one; we do not lose ourselves and become something else. If our hearts, our desires, our thoughts are in mutual understanding and internal connection, on top of all our egoistic desires that, precisely, try to separate between us, then it means that we unite as one. Moreover, to the extent that we unite as one, we are similar to that One force of nature, which is the Creator, which is Elokim.
Thus, we achieve life in a spiritual dimension, which are timeless, boundless, above time and space. We start to feel the inclusive nature, the eternal nature, and we feel ourselves as this nature and all of sudden you feel yourselves eternal, and not that much belonging to that beast, that animal, which is my body. Even though it dies and passes away, I already feel spiritual life in my unity with everyone else and with nature. That is a special state that we have to attain and for that, our whole process is aimed, basically, so the first thing is to unite ‘as one man in one heart.’
Question: Many times in my life, foreign people told me that I am very, very familiar to them and they are sure that they met me in some place or in some time. What does it mean? Is it connected to life cycles and incarnations and my role?
M. Laitman: No, from incarnation to the next, nothing comes besides the knowledge that we have acquired in the past incarnation, and it turns into qualities in the next incarnation. In other words, if we went through all kinds of processes, developments, occasions and occurrences in our life, all of that is as an experience, as knowledge when we finish our present life. It then enters in us as qualities, an addition to our qualities, and then we are born with all the experiences that is now in our qualities anew, and then we continue. That is the outcome from one incarnation to another, but no characters or people or knowing someone’s face, déjà vu; there is nothing like that from one incarnation to the other.
Moderator: How do you explain it? I know that feeling?
M. Laitman: Yes, it is because we have all kinds of patterns within us because we somehow imagine something, because we read something, or because we were impressed with something. We would put together a certain image in front of us.
Probably we were impressed by the media, by things that we saw, by something that we painted, by something that we read, and sometimes there are typical faces that you can imagine, but you do not relate to this any deep concealed meanings. There is no connection to the past incarnation; we cannot clarify all these incarnations, let us just drop this. From one incarnation to another what passes through what is called Reshimot (reminiscences), the data with which we continue our new life.
Question: What is the meaning of keep the morals of thy father and don’t leave the Torah of your mother. How do you carry this out in children’s education?
M. Laitman: Where is the education in the Torah of the mother or the Torahof the father? I don’t know. Let’s put it this way, it regards the two lines by which we have to aim a person: on the one hand, limitation and on the other hand development. This is how we interpret it in the wisdom of Kabbalah.
Helping a person understand that as much as he limits himself and as much as he increases the Upper level from him, he grows. We see this happening in little children in a simple and instinct way.
For instance, a father is playing with his child; he shows him something. The child instinctively belittle himself, asks what it is; he wants to ask, he wants to learn, as if he nullifies himself. On the other hand, he’s interested in absorbing what the father wants to give him, he accepts it naturally, and wants to go forward with this wisdom.
Therefore, these two forces, of self-subjugation and increasing the Upper force that can teach me, are our forces of development. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains this to a person that if we want to develop spiritually, we have to arrange ourselves in that way. In other words, be ready to bow our head in order to receive from Above, through these wisdom, forces, understandings and intentions to advance.
Moderator: How do you realize it in children’s education?
M. Laitman: In children’s education, I am not sure we can implement it like in the education that we have currently, nowadays but with our own children here, studying with us, we try to do it. We organize groups of children, and we teach them how to lower themselves towards the group in order to receive the impression from the group that spiritual development. The group influences each other because each subjugates towards the group and then the group can give him greater values than the ones he has.
Moderator: For instance, is there a way to implement it in the family with three children?
M. Laitman: Yes, by the example among the parents; if they can give that example from childhood or just teaching them the simple principles, it can influence.
Moderator: What is the example? I didn’t understand it. The parents should give an example to the children, of what?
M. Laitman: I would say that the parents should give that example to the children in the way that they, together with the children, will be as a small society, where each one makes concessions to the other in order to get the desire of the family as the most important one.
It does not matter what concessions are for; each one in the family will want to carry out the general desire of the family more than his own desire. That is it. They should try to make a game out of it in the beginning, give examples to each other and suddenly, they will discover how they can understand and advance and feel fulfillment through that, how one becomes satisfied by that and feels good by that. Suddenly, everybody feels good by that.
Moderator: But there is always one who is stubborn.
M. Laitman: Okay, so that stubborn one is very good; the others can work on him through love and show him how much he loses. On the one hand, this is called the morals way, and how much he earns if he unites with everyone is called the path of Torah. So, this way you have “your father’s morals and your mother’s Torah.” These two things, how much he loses or how much he earns, helps him becomes an integral, united part of the family or the group. The same thing applies in groups of Kabbalists; this whole system comes to us even from Abraham who founded the first group.
Moderator: So you are saying that in a home you can do that.
M. Laitman: Yes, I recommend doing that, of course and agree. Let us do that, let us play that game, and suddenly, we will see how much inner force is there; a game is a serious thing.
We see that people learn only from games, from examples and the same thing with our group here; we make examples for ourselves, and it is as if we are playing games. Moreover, if we will research nature and see how cells develop and multiply to become a whole body, we will see the same principle. The person who grows and the cell that grows from level to level, it develops by the same principle of game. Game is not just as it sounds, ‘a game,’ it is everything that I want to reach, the next level that I want to grow to, and I play it first. I play with it and I try to resemble it and, eventually, I grow and become an adult. Therefore, everything grows through game.
Question: There are two worlds: one is spiritual the other one is material. Why do you want me to give up on one of them?
M. Laitman: Who said such a thing? Never, God forbid! The Kabbalists are saying do not limit yourself with anything. Use this entire world but only not in cruelty, with an understanding of how much you can receive and how much you can give in order to be a balanced part in nature, in the whole of human society. If you will do that correctly, you will be happy, and you will feel good. Do not look at the whole world, the main thing is to understand what the general nature is and balance yourself with respect to this.
The wisdom of Kabbalah says that a person has to learn and study and be married and have children; he has to serve in the army and work and be a citizen like anyone else. He cannot isolate himself from society; no, do not leave anything, just study the wisdom of Kabbalah in your leisure time and implement it in your everyday life. This is what all of our students do; they all work, they all serve the country and this is the only way to go. The wisdom of Kabbalah tells a person, “the whole world was created for you and this is the way you have to be.”
Question: What is the method, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, to overcome ego and the evil inclination and not to be hurt from everything?
M. Laitman: A person cannot overpower his ego. We see this from reality; as much as we try to urge people, lecture and preach to them, I see that it does not bring any good use. On the contrary, the world deteriorates and the people of Israel as well. There is only one force called the Light that reforms, and that Light that reforms comes only through the study of Kabbalah. This is written in the Book of Zohar and in the writings of Kabbalists and more than them, who knows the whole of reality.
Therefore, we need to open these books of Kabbalah and by that, attract that special force in nature called the Torah or Light, and it will influence us and change us. There is no other means, no other force by which to correct our evil inclination, our ego, if not by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes about it, Rav Kook writes about it, the AGRA, Baal Shem Tov, the Ari and the Zohar, everywhere. Wherever we see that there is evil inclination in the Torah, it’s written “the Light in It that reforms” and there is no other thing. “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice, because the Light in it reforms.”
How do you attract that Light that Reforms? Only by the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, and they explain this to us. Why? Through the wisdom of Kabbalah, you learn how your soul is in a spiritual development, and how the ego turns into love and bestowal. We see that people who don’t study the wisdom of Kabbalah are in the same level of ego that they had before. Only those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah correctly correct their egos, and they attain the love of Israel, the love of man and therefore, let’s use that force.
Question: A nine and a half years old girl asks, what are sins and how do you atone them by the wisdom of Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: Sins are only through ego and there is no way to atone them, and there is no way to atone for them unless a person corrects his ego. My entire ego wants to take advantage of others; I want to take advantage of the whole world for my own good. Accordingly, how do I correct it? I extract the force from the study of Kabbalah that corrects my ego and then, instead of taking advantage of the others, I love the others.
How can I love the others, just like that? I do not feel like it, but the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the concealed wisdom. Why? It opens up the concealed part of the world; I start to see the whole system, how these forces operate behind this whole world—like embroidery. I see the whole mess of threads that are connected to one another behind it and this vision, this sight is called the Revelation of Godliness.
It works on me in such a way that I cannot do harm to others, because I see that it comes back to me, to people that are connected to me, and that it just creates terrible things in the world. That vision, that sight called “opening the eyes by the Torah,” keeps a person from doing bad things and limits him, and corrects him. Therefore, if we do not take the wisdom of the concealed that reveals to us the part that is concealed, we will not be able to correct ourselves, and we will only deteriorate to worse scenarios.
Question: I am following the show all the time, and I feel a point in my heart throughout all of my life. Many times after the morning show, I feel full of energy, and many times I feel the opposite. What should I do in order to overcome the negative energies and the questions that I have? I want to connect to the Light, how can I do it?
M. Laitman: I understand her. That is correct. It is written even more than that. A person cannot advance without falling; “a person cannot do a Mitzva (commandment) without failing in it first,” “There is no righteous in the land that did not transgress before.” First, you have to discover the transgressions, the ego, our helplessness and lack of strength, and only then, from that evil, from the depth of this despair that the whole world is starting to experience, we will achieve corrections.
The fact that once you leave our lesson with such a good feeling that the whole world is good and everything is good and another time everything is bad and the whole world is bad, is very good. These opposed states are developing the person and bringing him to correction because eventually, we grow in height by transcending our hatred, our evil inclinations and our transgressions, and by discovering our helplessness.
Therefore, there is nothing to be afraid of, and you should not be impressed by it as well, from all the despairs and the falls along the way. However, on the contrary, try to connect these two states together; if there is an ascent or a descent, right away read something, especially, from the articles of Shamati, if this is someone who is studying with us regularly. Or, you can use easier books, and there you will find an answer on how to overcome every state and overcome it correctly not just be calm but use it as a crane, as leverage to spiritual development, and thus feels a great benefit out of it.
Question: I wanted to ask if Ben (son) in Kabbalah is some kind of Havana, understanding. What is Ben in Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: There are Bat and Ben (girl and boy). Girl means the deficit, a state called desire. Ben (son) means that, in addition to the desire, a person corrects it, and out of the corrected desire he reached the Revelation.
Ben comes from the word Mevin (understands); he reaches Bina, (intelligence) the quality of Bina (understanding). Bat is the previous state that brings the fulfillment. Therefore, these two states, boy and girl, happen in one person. It is one state and the next, Bat and Ben.
Moderator: What do you mean by cause and effect, one state and the other?
M. Laitman: By feeling empty and a desire that I want to advance, then I reach a state where I lack something, and I need something, then I do actions and come to the level of Bina, transcend my deficit to the revelation of spirituality and that is called Ben, son that understands.
Moderator: Let me see if I understood correctly. In every state that a person develops in spirituality, he has a girl and then a boy, a girl and then a boy.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Moderator: Can you explain this a bit more? Let us say that I am at a certain point and I have nothing.
M. Laitman: Suddenly, you start feeling that you do not understand, and you do not attain anything. You feel bad; life is dark, the world is not understood, something is missing in the world, and you lack something. This is called the state of a Bat (girl). Woman (Ishah) comes from the word Nukvah/Nekeva (female)—empty space, a void; however, that void, precisely, brings you the desire to advance.
If you take that desire and start to implement it—study, advance, open a book in Kabbalah, this desire brings you to the method, to the system of how to fulfill that desire. When that desire is fulfilled, it is fulfilled with knowledge, with sensation and fulfillment. Then you understand, precisely due to that preliminary desire, the question that you had, you now have an answer, the solution and that solution is called Ben (boy), understanding (Mevin). This is how we advance from the level of desire to the level of fulfillment.
Moderator: Desire and fulfillment, it looks like the first part is more important, precisely, the girl.
M. Laitman: Yes, of course, the desire of the woman is much more important than the desire of the man. The woman is the general desire in reality and man is only the correction of reality.
Moderator: If there was no girl, there was no boy after it. So girl is some kind of motor of advancement, an inner motor of advancement within me.
M. Laitman: Yes and in the world in general. The world advances due to the women’s general desire to give birth, to bring up children.
Moderator: This boy and girl are in every person, in a woman and a man?
M. Laitman: Yes, everyone who wants to advance has these two states.
Moderator: And in the world as a whole?
M. Laitman: Yes, the individual and the general are equal; the processes in a person and in a society, in a country or in human society are the same.
Moderator: As a Kabbalist, when you look at the state of the people or humanity at large today, are we in the state of a girl or a boy?
M. Laitman: According to the revelation of the deficits and the unpleasant increasing states in the whole world, we are starting the state of the deficit, the girl.
Moderator: What is exactly that deficit you are talking about?
M. Laitman: Feeling emptiness, helplessness; we do not know how to correct it, and we do not know how to fulfill ourselves. We do not know where it leads us, where we are headed, where it comes from, what is the solution. We are in despair, drug abuse, divorce, educational crisis. Now, a financial crisis is coming along that can divide the whole world, and we will not know what to do about it because everyone is so interconnected and this whole thing can now fall. It turns out that this general deficit, like the Book of Zohar explains to us, is the final desire that will eventually bring the revelation of the Creator to the creature.
Moderator: And that will be Ben?
M. Laitman: Yes, this will be called Ben, from the word, Mevin (understanding), “we shall all know Him from the least to the greatest one.”