Question: In the period of the Torah, the time of the Mikra, when Solomon built the Temple and the Creator dwelled within us, didn’t we have a spiritual bond then? Didn’t we have a spiritual elation? I think that if the Creator dwelled among us, then it meant that we were closer to Him, to the Boreh (the Creator) and still we stumbled. What is the guarantee that we will come to that same level and will not repeat the same mistake? It may well be that the road must be a different one.
Michael Laitman: Yes, we were at a very high level. It is described in the wisdom of Kabbalah as something called Mochin de Haya, which was the First Temple; a great Light that dwelled among the people of Israel. Even after the exile in Babylon, where Purim occurred, we returned and built the Second Temple where the divine also revealed itself. However, it was in a lower level called, Mochin de Neshama. Yet we were still together, even though we had a lot of arguments, wars, and many problems in overcoming our increasing egoism. There was the problem of the ten tribes and all of that which happened historically.
We read about it in the Bible as well. But as a people we were still able to overcome. We were still within a spiritual level, loving and giving to one another, and there was the actual revelation of the Creator among us and it was tangible.
Moderator: So what happened?
M. Laitman: Because of our will to receive, our egoistic desire grows from one generation to the next within all of humanity and within us as well, so we had to close this gap and cover the evil that awakened within us. And on the one hand we didn’t succeed all the time. On the other hand, that was the process we had to go through as well.
Moderator: So you’re saying it was preplanned?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course, as we learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah about the spiritual world, before the powers descended into this world, all the planning was already done in the spiritual world: the exile from Egypt, the First Temple, the Second Temple, the destruction of the Second Temple, the complete fall from spirituality that happened to the people of Israel and their sojourn amongst the nations of the world. That's until the Ari (who is Messiah son of Joseph) opened the wisdom of Kabbalah again, whereby we started from there to gradually prepare ourselves for spirituality, to the same state that was during the First Temple.
Moderator: So this time does the way have to be different?
M. Laitman: Yes, it is different and final. It’s to be an ascent with no descent, only towards the final correction, the Third and final Temple. It starts by Israel correcting itself with the help of all the nations of the world, and then the nations of the world correct themselves.
Moderator: When you are talking about the Third Temple, are you talking about going to the temple mount and building a Temple?
M. Laitman: No, that is the corporeal result that is only after we build that Temple within us. The temple in Hebrew means a house. It is the heart of the person. All his desires are to be sanctified and will be for the love of the other, as it is written “love thy friend as thyself that is the inclusive law of the Torah.”
If we use the Light that Reforms us that comes to us through the study of Kabbalah, we will be able to correct our ego and then its opposite, the brotherly love, will emerge among us. And from that brotherly love, we will reach a state where we connect to one another as being all of Israel, as friends and as brothers. And that is called, building the Temple first between us inspirituality. And then we will feel the Godliness that dwells among us and the revelation of divinity. This will materialize in Jerusalem at a place where it has to be, because it can’t happen any other way.
And besides that, it’s also written in The Prophets that the people of the world will help us go back to the Temple “for My House will be called the House of Prayer for all Nations” and that is the Third Temple. So the nation of Israel is coming back to that state through the help of the people of the world as it is described there, “The nations of the world will carry your sons and daughters on their shoulders,” and thus we’ll achieve correction.
Question: An eight and a half year old boy asks, “Sometimes it’s hard for me to take into consideration other people. So how can a person be otherwise than bad?”
M. Laitman: He can’t, that’s our nature. We were born with an egoism that eats us and accompanies us all of our life and directs us to exploit and take advantage of our surroundings for our own benefit. We do it consciously or unconsciously and we can’t give any account for it. But only if we start studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, are we then connected to that special force, the Light that reforms and then we start to feel within how and where the ego controls us.
According to that recognition of evil, we realize that it is our enemy, disrupting our way to goodness. Feeling it as an enemy, we naturally want to depart and get away from it. Therefore, we don’t have to do any actions forcefully here. Only the study of Kabbalah acts against all of this when studied correctly through the books of Kabbalah and the correct method, then its Light Reforms. A person by himself cannot find a way or the power to be saved from the ego.
Moderator: You’re saying that a person will feel his ego as his enemy. But a normal person doesn’t normally feel that. He feels his ego as his “I.” “I want, I try and I make efforts to succeed.” This is his liveliness his sense of existence.
M. Laitman: Yes, you’re not telling a person to throw everything away and do something for some abstract idea. When studying Kabbalah, one starts to open up his eyes and see that this is to his detriment.
Moderator: What is to his own detriment?
M. Laitman: Using his ego and exploiting others. He starts to sense that if he gives, surrenders and connects to others through his inner feelings of giving and love, he benefits from it. He starts feeling some Light flowing through him, some fulfillment and some good feelings of elation. He starts to see this whole world as transparent. He starts to see that we are all interconnected within one system and that’s vision.
Without revealing this, he cannot make these corrections. As it’s written, “Know thy Creator and work for Him.” He has to discover that. And revealing the truth already brings a person accordingly to good action and thus, one advances.
The Torah doesn’t demand from us to be simply good. If my nature is evil, how can I be good? Not by chance it is written, “The Light that is in the Torah Reforms.” You don’t have to do anything but attract that Light.
Therefore, there was a time when the Kabbalists hid the wisdom of Kabbalah because we were not supposed to correct ourselves. We were supposed to be in exile, enslaved by the culture of the people of the world. We were supposed to be mixed with them for about sixteen hundred years. And from the time of the Ari onwards, we began to leave that state; differentiate ourselves from them and then advance. And then the wisdom of Kabbalah started to be revealed. Why? It is because precisely by that wisdom we are able to attract the Light that Reforms. Everything depends only on the Light, not on one’s own strength or on oneself.
And in study of Kabbalah, one does not need to put in more effort beyond studying. And by the study he starts to see the whole system, how everything is interconnected. He sees that, ‘If I do harm to another and do this and that, if I do not elevate myself, then I do myself harm.’ And that vision, which is called “opening your eyes in Torah,” opens a whole new path for him and he changes accordingly. Because a person is built in such a way that he will not cause harm to himself and then he sees that it’s worthwhile for him to do so.
Question: I’ve been watching on TV the meeting in San Francisco many times. And every time I see it, I’m so excited and I cry. Because the scientists finally understood the wisdom of Kabbalah that Michael Laitman communicated to them. My question is, why can’t we do it with our leaders, so that they get a little of this exalted wisdom?
M. Laitman: Regrettably, the state of affairs is not good with our leaders and with the leadership of Israel in general. And what can we do about it? The scientists all over the world are willing to learn. According to their nature they like to hear new things and build their own advancement in wisdom and science based on these new things. It says “the envy among authors increases the wisdom.” And that moves them and advances them because they are prepared to hear what the others have to say, to collect all the various information, inventions, and thus promote their own ideas. Each one does it for himself but the attitude at least is good. It is like ‘I don’t seal my mouth, ears, or shut my eyes; rather I want to absorb new things.’
Unfortunately, our leaders and basically all of the leaders worldwide are kind of blocked from absorbing new things. They have only one thing to hold on to and they can’t hear new things which might even seem unrealistic to them. And it is even hard to speak to them. I met members of the Knesset, and I met abroad a few world leaders. They’re all incapable of absorbing such high ideas.
Moderator: What will then be?
M. Laitman: I spoke to very strong, great and ruling people. Well, so to speak “ruling,” because as it says, “The heart of ministers and kings is in the hands of the Creator.” However, they are not the ones who rule; rather the Creator guides the world through them. But this is what they say, “Tell me how much money you need, how much power you need.” They know only one thing, “I have an army. I have the treasury. This is how I run everything (money and power). These are the two reins and this is how they manage the world.”
Therefore, you can’t talk to them, because first of all, I recommended that they start immediately educating the people spiritually; to elevate the people to the spiritual level of the love of men, the love of Israel. Because within this is our power and with this we can triumph. We can never be victorious with any other force nor have we ever been. Torah says this as well. Therefore we must ignore our leaders and let them be as they are.
Moderator: What else can we do? Everything is run by them. The simple citizen doesn’t feel that he has the power to do anything, besides throwing a ticket once in a while into the voting booth.
M. Laitman: That’s all worthless, because everything is in the hands of the Creator. It will be different when the people begin to feel that they want spiritual elevation and that they can’t stay in that lowly state they are in. They will have to have new values, a new life and want to be the real Israel on a completely different level of the love of man, in self-actualization. That won’t depend on any leader.
Therefore, what we have to do is (I hope we will do it in time) find all these powers in society that want spiritual change. That power of the spirit will sustain us, and will let us win over our leaders, which we will transform. They will change along with us as well as being changed from Above by the forces that manage the whole of nature and then we will have new life. I think it depends on the education of the people.
Moderator: It sounds like what you’re saying is some kind of revolution that starts from below.
M. Laitman: Yes, and this is the only thing I believe in: that it will start from below. Don’t think that from those prominent ones Torah will emerge; never, it will only emerge from the people. The wisdom of Kabbalah and the Torah in general, come from within and from below, as water does.
I therefore, do not anticipate any change unless it’s from the ranks of the people, who will feel more and more through the TV, radio, and the press (like the magazine you just presented in the beginning of the show). Through these things the people will change and understand that brotherly love is the force by which we will vanquish all of our enemies, both our external enemies and inner enemies and we will achieve adhesion with the Creator.
Question: I heard that the King of Saudi Arabia is going to have a gathering of Muslims, Jews and Christians. They will deal among others, with the blow to morality and the dismantling of the family. Do you think we should try to participate in such a meeting?
M. Laitman: Who do you mean by ‘we’? I am not the one to decide. However, if you ask me, I don’t think there is a place for it.
Moderator: Now that they (all those religious people) are finally meeting, will you not participate?
M. Laitman: They are not capable, because they are religious people.
Religious people each have their own solutions. Their solution is to create the popular correction so that every person will follow what’s written in their Scriptures. Israel will keep the Torah and Mitzvoth (commandments), in their differentiated way, and all the other religions will keep theirs. And this will calm each of them.
Moderator: But they have some kind of common denominator.
M. Laitman: The common denominator is simple: at the base of every religion, at the very start there is some kind of ethical laws.
Moderator: Right, but now in the twenty-first century, when everything is falling apart, they say, “Let’s try to do something together.”
M. Laitman: Yes, but we are far away from that today; no one talks of ethics and everyone does his own thing. Let’s just say that the Christians who want to speak with the Jews and Muslims; all of that is just external. It won’t bring change in the world; it can’t, because they don’t even talk about the actual correction that the world demands today.
Moderator: What is that real correction?
M. Laitman: The world has to correct its nature; we have to correct the ego. That is what we were born for, and that is why we exist. And at our present time, the time of the Messiah, is when we have to attract the force from Above that will take us out of our present state. And this state is bad because of man’s ego that overcomes him and forces him to do all the terrible things in the world.
Moderator: Yes, but in all religions they talk about love of man. Why isn’t that the correction of ego?
M. Laitman: Because they have no instrument to correct ego. That instrument is the Light that Reforms and it appears to a person only if he studies the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is what Kabbalists write and this is what we see. In exile, we only engaged with the literal Torah, and it just relatively maintained us in a certain framework until the time of the Ari, until the period of enlightenment. And after that, the ego had grown. We had to start our self-correction but we didn’t start it on time, and people started leaving this popular Tora hand just became what is called free, they became free.
And today, coming back to religion is not a solution and it doesn’t correct us and it doesn’t correct the world. But like The Book of Zohar says, and all of the Kabbalists say, “We have to correct our ego. We have to discover how opposite we are to the Creator, and we have to come to that force that will rule us, which is the force of giving and love.” As it says, “Love thy friend as thyself is the all inclusive law of the Torah.” Where do we actually see that in the nation, or in some part of the nation? But only people who deal with the wisdom of Kabbalah feel that it’s necessary for them, and then they will go through correction.
There is no escape for Israel and there is no other solution, it’s like Baal HaSulam says, “sitting on the students’ bench” or in front of the TV on the sofa, doesn’t matter. But listening to a part of a lesson, or watching a little of a Kabbalah program about what the Torah says on corresponding problems that are now awakening in the world matters.
On the one hand, there is the globalization, and the approaching crises which are developing in a very fast way, and on the other, is the revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah. We have to decide why it is coming. The man is in the middle and has to use the wisdom of Kabbalah thereby, neutralizing the global crisis, the economic crisis, and the ecological crisis, then he will manage himself better in this world, and feel the upper spiritual world as well, simultaneously.
Moderator: I want to take what you said and try to translate it to something practical. Let’s say that today there will be that committee with Saudi Arabia’s king. And Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders (all the religious leaders of the world) will sit around the table, like we are sitting here, and they will agree that they want to end all of the wars and make peace in the world. Will they succeed or not?
M. Laitman: They will not succeed.
Moderator: Why not? They all want to do it. Why else do they meet? Let’s say they want to do it.
M. Laitman: They may even take the Iranian and all the leaders.
Moderator: Maybe he won’t want to come. I’m not saying to force those who don’t want to come. I’m saying those who want to come. Why won’t they succeed?
M. Laitman: Even if everyone wants to come it won’t help, because there is a purpose for this world, and that is that it will entirely rise to the level of the Creator. “And everyone will know Him, from the least of them to the greatest of them.” This entire process, of someone good and someone bad existing in the world, is not a chance happening. The Creator leads the world and He directs us to where we are to exit this corporeal-world level; where we feel bad and behave egoistically.
Moderator: I don’t get it. The Creator doesn’t want all people to make peace? Why?
M. Laitman: No, because He makes the evil, He causes the wars, so to speak, because He wants us to advance above it. This is all a means by which to raise us to the spiritual level. Who made all the troubles in Egypt? “Come unto Pharaoh because I hardened his heart?” “I” hardened his heart. It is the same thing today, the Pharaoh, (everyone evil that is harmful in the world is as that Pharaoh). And who hardens their heart if not the Creator and against what? They are all aiming at us. Why? It is because we are not supposed to make peace but on the contrary, we have to understand that these forces oblige us to rise and get out of this exile.
Moderator: Exit to where?
M. Laitman: Exit to the sensation that there is a mount of hatred among us—Mount Sinai. If we see that, then we have to go one additional step forward. We have to transcend that mountain, and then we will have a meeting with the Creator.
Moderator: How do we do that? Here I’m telling you that they are going to have a meeting in Saudi Arabia and you say they will not succeed.
M. Laitman: No, since their goal is not to exit the ego. Their goal is just to appease. They won’t discover that the ego is the whole thing that is evil within a person, and a person has to transcend it. And then they will look at how to do it, and then they will come to the wisdom of Kabbalah.
How did Abraham discover it? By looking to get out of ego that was then bursting in ancient Babylon. He looked around and didn’t understand at first what was happening. He began examining nature, looking at what was behind the stars and everything and asking why it happens this way with people.
All other parts of nature are in harmony, and suddenly only man starts to be evil. No part in nature does badly to the other parts. Even if animals eat each other, they don’t do badly to each other. They are only carrying out the plan. But a person wants to do evil and enjoys it when another has it worse than himself.
Then Abraham understood that all these things happen in order for us to rise above it. It’s like Moses did the same thing later; he rose up on top of the Mount Sinai (hatred). How? Through Arvut (mutual guarantee); we have to connect with one another by Arvut, which means that we are all as one man in one heart. Everyone has to feel all of the others, and then we accept that force called Torah, and then we are able to rise to the spiritual level. This is the only way we can win over Pharaoh; that’s the only way.
And what are you saying? You’re saying they will gather and they’ll have a nice appeasement. Do you think that will calm the ego down? No, because the Creator, on His end, will harden their heart.
Therefore, we have no other choice. We need the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to attract the Light, and that Light will help us. It will make peace Above and bring peace to us. It will connect us together and with that force we will ascend.
Question: I have a question about education How do you see the school of the future?
M. Laitman: That’s really the dream that I’d like to see. And what is that dream? I think that school primarily has to be veritably the minor temple. What do I mean? That in school the man is built; a person comes to school and he is taught how to be a man.
In other words, why was I born? What is happening in the world? What is nature? What stands behind nature? Why are these forces operating on us in such a way? What should I do accordingly? What is happening, what are the signs that I’m supposed to notice every day, as to how people behave towards me and I behave towards them? How can I look at this whole picture as transparent, and see the force that stands behind that whole picture and discover it?
I would then start to speak to that force that stands behind nature, like to someone I know and someone I am familiar with. And in such away, I’ll make fewer mistakes. I’m sure that I will succeed in life, because I will know what it is to really succeed and not chase all kinds of false goals. And that is what I think education should be like, to build the man. We give to the children in school a lot of knowledge, and they come out from it empty. They don’t even really study it and nothing remains in them and even if something was left, they can’t really use it in life. They learn to live from TV.
Moderator: My son is in the first grade and I think even before school, through the internet and self-study, he knew more and learned more than what he learns in school.
M. Laitman: Right, because we have to turn school not into a place where you learn subjects, but just one subject—to build a man.
Moderator: And how will we learn professions?
M. Laitman: That will be something in school that we’ll study as complementary.
Moderator: I mean, will you not teach the children things that they have to know, like natural sciences, sociology, etc.?
M. Laitman: All of these things will be learned through observation, as a perspective of “let us create man.” Theywill look to see how they grasp the world, why the world behaves as it does according to what rules.
Why do we have to behave in a way that corresponds to the world and to nature so as to be in balance with nature? The whole of nature is balanced. All parts of nature exist in harmony just as our body is regulated and all of it is connected together. And we, humans have to consciously, with self -awareness, enter nature in an integrated way, connected to all parts in a correct way. All parts of nature, (still, vegetative and animate) are found in nature in a balanced way, and only man is unbalanced because his ego bursts each time, and forces him to be the evil part in nature. If we know how to balance ourselves, to rein in evil and how to be in right contact with nature, we will have a good life.
We need to educate our children towards this. And lately, I’m hearing from all kinds of places that the education has to be ecological, so to speak; a general education that speaks about all of nature. Ideally, one will explain to the student why he exists, and the world he exists in. The student is not to be engaged in artificial knowledge about this and that, and a few laws, which will later be built on in the university, followed by his going to work
We see that people dislike it; they feel that they are not full and it doesn’t really give them the wisdom of life. So first of all, give them the wisdom of life, maybe you can call it that.
Question: Why, according to what you say, do people come to Kabbalah only after difficulties and a sensation of difficulty? I mean there are many beautiful things in life like culture, art, beauty and so on. Can’t one come to Kabbalah from being impressed with the world?
M. Laitman: Hardly and I’ll tell you why. Because our ego draws us in all kinds of directions and if I’m able to find fulfillment in some education, culture, arts, and sports and in other things, why would I leave it? Here, we’re talking about man’s correction. And who wants that? But I have to go through a few blows in my life.
We see how every person, including the whole world in general, is going through such universe-wide blows, that are causing us to start asking, “Why does it happen to us, what for and what does it tell us?” From these blows one comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah, because the wisdom of Kabbalah has to elevate us to a completely different level. It must take us to a spiritual level where we exist in the second part of the world as well.
What we see of nature is only a little part and the second part is concealed from us. Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the wisdom of the concealed. It opens up that concealed realm and then we see the whole of nature, how it works, how everything functions, how everything is aimed at us, and how to relate beautifully to everything in such a way that we will feel good in the future, and won’t make mistakes that we cannot get out of afterwards.
Hence, a person should look at how constricted he is in this world, how much he doesn’t understand what happens, harms himself and the whole world, and doesn’t know how to get out of it. He’s like a little child who’s looking for something to do. And thus, a person reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah. And it says in the wisdom of Kabbalah that people, who come to study it, come with a question of “What is the meaning of life? Why do I feel bad?” Otherwise, they won’t need it; they’ll find all kinds of temptations and satisfactions of this world.
Moderator: Let's go back to the previous question: “Why do you say that I’m coming to Kabbalah from misery and pain? I don’t identify with these words. I cannot say that I am feeling bad. There are many beautiful things in this world.”
And another person asks you in a lecture in our hall, about a person who wakes up in the morning, opens their eyes to a beautiful world of sunshine, butterflies, birds, happiness and meets people. And out of this happiness, which he defines as wanting something more at a certain level, and thinks that it probably exists in the wisdom of Kabbalah, so comes to it and joins it.
M. Laitman: Correct. But the question, this feeling that he is lacking, that exactly is the question.
Moderator: So it is not out of negation, that all is corrupt?
M. Laitman: No, not necessarily.
Moderator: When one has everything, what is bad about that?
M. Laitman: It does not matter. I also didn’t lack anything materialistically. I was a young, successful, beginning scientist, healthy and with a wife. I had only one child, (my first son), everything was there, and I lacked nothing. I also was born to a family that was established and intelligent. I had it all.
Moderator: Did you like walking in nature? For instance, I grew up in a village and used to walk in the fields, and it was wonderful.
M. Laitman: I went on long hikes and I had everything but it didn’t satisfy me.
Moderator: Yes but that’s not bad, right? What’s bad in walking in a field of butterflies?
M. Laitman: That’s correct, but the wisdom of Kabbalah says that a person who comes and asks, “What do I live for” doesn’t ask that because he lacks something to eat, a house, family, work or being established in society.
It is beyond all of that, since most people today normally have something to eat. You can’t say that people in Israel are starving. And even if there is poverty, it’s only relative. But a person asks, “What is the point in my life?” from feeling a new, specific, special misery.
He asks, “what is all this for, why do I need all of that?” Remember that this question” Why do I need all of that” is written in the Torah. A person suddenly feels that he lacks something that he cannot fulfill by anything. “Give me all the money and gold in the world and I won’t be satisfied. There is something else I have to fulfill.”
And that means that the point in the heart awakens within him. The soul starts to develop, to open itself. And the person with all the good in the world may feel, “I don’t want a thing; I can’t fulfill myself by TV shows, culture, art, education or anything that you can say is beautiful. There is all the beauty in the world and yet it doesn’t fulfill me, what can I do about it?”
And these kinds of people come to Kabbalah. You see who the people are who come to our lectures; people who are thirty-five, forty years old or younger, but people that have everything in life. They study, they teach, they work and some of them are parents. They are already at an age where they are established.
They discover a lack for something more but they don’t know what. That lack brings them to some TV program, a lecture, book, or that new magazine, it doesn’t matter what. But that lack is what directs the person. A person doesn’t know why, but this is how he comes to the place where he can be fulfilled and thus, people come and that is what I’m talking about.
I am speaking of people who feel troubled. Why do people use drugs and why are people depressed? Even in northern Europe, in the most organized countries, there is specifically the highest percentage of suicide, drugs and despair. Not in Africa! You do not hear this about African people. They are not feeling despair; give them food and they don’t need anything else. So, we see that this blow that the world is now experiencing is very special. “I lack the recognition of something beyond this world.”
Moderator: What is that “more than this world”? What is that thing that attracts the person without him knowing what it is?
M. Laitman: The Creator, this is what the person wants. The lack that is becoming apparent today in the world is the lack of connection with the Upper force. To know, “What am I for? Why am I? What is the use of this life?” All of our troubles that are being revealed from all sides, the global crisis and everything only help us clarify and sharpen that question.
Moderator: Yes, but not all the people who are looking for that ‘something beyond’ are attracted to religion or to connecting with the Creator, and many people who hear such words will not identify with it.
M. Laitman: Wait, they are still on their way, maybe in two or three years, no more. Because the world today is very rapidly scrutinizing this question, and we will see millions and billions who will precisely focus on this.
Moderator: Is the connection with the Creator something which is religious?
M. Laitman: No it’s internal; it’s from the heart. Everything is through the heart, the correction of the heart, and for the heart’s connection with the Upper force which wants us to know Him. And knowing Him is only through our desire; by developing our desire towards Him. We’re only talking about man’s desire without any connection to the deeds he does in this world, but it’s only in order to correct the heart. “The Creator wants all hearts” as it is called. And the whole Torah was given for that reason, like Ezra says in his interpretation to the Torah.
Moderator: And when the person contacts the Creator, does he receive that more that he aspired for, which is more than we know?
M. Laitman: First of all, he opens the concealed half of the world. He starts to see how everything behaves. He begins to see all the incarnations and the whole process. He understands ‘what’ and ‘why’ everything is. He connects to eternity and wholeness, and entering it he feels that. He senses that not all ends after seventy years of life and from this he has a completely different perspective; his observation of life changes.
Moderator: I want to come to a certain measurement by starting with the question that was asked. What is the difference between inspiration that a person feels from good art, a beautiful sunset at sea, an illustrious morning, and that “more” that you say Kabbalah brings to a person as a result of connecting with the Creator? Can you make some kind of comparison here so we can understand the ratio we are talking about?
M. Laitman: It means to attain the root of your soul. It means to attain your beginning, the reason you live for and to fulfill yourself with the Upper Light. That includes all the fulfillments one receives in education, culture, and the beautiful things that lady described, and one rises to a level of being as the Creator. “They will be as the Creator knowing good and evil.” He achieves a state of perfection and eternity. These are ‘words’ I understand that they are in the meantime empty, yet a person attains eternal life. As for me I have nothing to say.
Moderator: I’ll ask it from a different perspective. We said that everything in the world is nice and great. But once in a lifetime, a person starts to feel that everything is wonderful but he wants more. You told me he wants more, but he doesn’t know what that ‘more’ is.
M. Laitman: It’s more than what he has in this world. His lack is completely new, from new levels. It’s called the development of the soul. His soul started developing, because he’s asking about the Creator, about the Upper force that he wants to connect to. That’s his question.
Moderator: And I’m asking about the very end of the road, when a person meets the Upper Force. You also told me that a person doesn’t know that his aspiration is for the Creator. Is it clarified on the way?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Moderator: I’m referring to the end of the path where he’s reached a connection with the Creator. Now, let’s go backwards to his previous state when he was inspired by our world, from the beautiful and wonderful things in our life. Can you make some kind of emotional comparison between the best, most wonderful thing I know today, and the more that awaits me as a result of the connection with the Creator?
M. Laitman: It might seem coarse and egoistic but the smallest, the first level in spirituality (there are many levels in spirituality, we divide it into 125 levels), which is closest to us, includes within it a billion times more pleasures, fulfillments, sensations, knowing, understanding, connection and attainments that fulfills a person more than this world. Because in spirituality there is no limitation; you’re not limited. It’s not like you drink something and no longer want to drink. Or maybe in the next moment you want something to eat, or to rest, or listen to something, or read. Everything in our life comes from a deficit, from lacking something and then fulfilling it, and then lacking something again and then fulfilling it. That’s our whole life and that way of life is very lowly.
While in spirituality, everything develops not from a deficit but from perfection, to a higher and greater perfection. And these things do not proceed at all the way they do here. But I’m talking about something different. A person wants to be saved from troubles, and everyone has troubles. That lady whom we heard talked about all the good things she experiences in this world. Let's examine it, and we’ll see not so good things behind it. I read a lot of statistics; I am in various councils, even those of the UN and I receive their reports. And I don’t see that it is so beautiful and good in the world. People do not feel this way and the numbers also show what the people are going through and experiencing.
We live at a time when we are in an imbalance with nature, and the evil within us is so great that we are starting to destroy ourselves. The wisdom of Kabbalah says to balance your forces of reception and bestowal, “giving, loving and receiving for yourself.” You can be living in a perfect, balanced world, just as in a healthy body where all is balanced. But how does a person do that? He wants to eat everyone up, exploit them.
That is so. But if you will discover the Upper force, you will see how good it is for you to be connected with everyone else, in a perfect way. Only this Upper Force, the revelation of the Creator, will help you. It’s called, “The Testimony of the Creator.” He testifies by showing Himself to you, that general force of nature that rules. And from that vision, from that revelation we enter into the correct actions of living right and the correct relations between us.
Then, all of a sudden, we discover among us a spiritual world. We start to be integrated with a sensation of living the perfect, eternal life. We come not from lack but from all that is good. And that’s the goal of creation, to bring us to that level; so, I’m completely optimistic.
Question: Does the theory of holograms describe our reality, and is the theory of strings taken from or built on the foundation of the ten Sefirot?
M. Laitman: A hologram is a special angle of filming, of capturing the world. In our research today, we can see the world in a certain polarization. We observe in our world that animals see things completely differently. They see things that we don’t see and they color themselves in colors that we can’t see, because we need to look at them from a specific angle which our eyes are not equipped. We are only now discovering that we can build such tools and we discovered this by chance because in the beginning we didn’t know what we were lacking. There are many things in the world (Olam in Hebrew) that are concealed, and that's why it’s called Olam, concealment.
A hologram explains to us how complex the world is, because in every part that you examine, you can see the whole world. In every atom, you see the structure of the whole universe. In every atom, even as you look at its particles, you can discover everything. In the wisdom of Kabbalah this law is called, “The individual and general are equal.” There is nothing in reality that does not include the whole of reality and this is what we actually see in a hologram. If I have a holographic picture, then I can take a little part of it and I will find the whole picture.
Looking at a magazine, let’s say it has a holographic picture and when I look at a small part of it (say a person in it,) I again see the whole picture and if I look at another smaller part of it, I will see the whole picture again. Each part includes all within it. And that is correct. That explains to us how complex and infinite the world is. And if you go deeper into it, you open it to its greater depth and it stays, it’s not absent. And that actually is what the wisdom of Kabbalah (the concealed wisdom) reveals to us. It’s called the Inner Wisdom, the internality of the Torah. That is its name. Why? Because the more you go inside, the more you discover what happens to you outside; more of what you saw before, and more and more additional things inwardly.
Whereas, the string theory is just a theory that people made up, and I see that slowly people will cease to engage in it. I don’t even want to explain it; it’s things that belong to technology and science, and inspires those people.
Moderator: What is the relation between the most advanced theories in science and Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: First of all wisdom, science is anything that is based on logic and experience. It is the same thing with the wisdom of Kabbalah; it’s a science as well. Why? Baal HaSulam writes many articles on why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called a science. If a person develops his sixth sense, it’s like an additional instrument. It’s like suddenly he discovers that there are animals that see a different color or picture of the world which he does not see. So, if he develops that sixth sense, this special radar within him, then he senses the spiritual world.
After he discovers the spiritual world, he researches it like any other researcher or like any other scientist. Therefore, this process is called the wisdom of Kabbalah: after you acquire the sixth sense called soul, by which you feel the Creator, and the spiritual world, then you research it, you know it and you advance towards it. This is how the Kabbalists build all the worlds for us and explain the order of the forces that work on us. How do they know about it? Because they enter, see and feel it and that is called spiritual attainment.
Hence, the wisdom of Kabbalah is a true science. Whereas, many kinds of theories that people build are without any infrastructure that is experienced and factual; that’s not a science, and it’s not wisdom. It can be a part of a science only if it develops something tangible; something that is under experimentation.
Moderator: So you’re saying that Kabbalists research a higher level of reality and you are calling it, ‘the spiritual world,’ a deeper level of reality. My question is, when a person becomes a Kabbalist, and he researches that deeper layer, does he know the corporeal world better as well, such as researched by the regular physicist?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course. There are such pictures called stereogram; it looks like wallpaper, but when you’re looking at it, it turns into three-dimensional pictures. All of a sudden you see depth, and it’s the same thing with a Kabbalist. He doesn’t look at the external picture, but he uses the wisdom of Kabbalah to break his concentration, his present seeing, and focuses his senses on a more inner thing. His internality means inwardness, bestowal, giving and love.
In such a way he goes against his nature, against his ego and then he starts perceiving not the external form in the world, but he starts looking at the inner force that works in the world. And that’s the quality of the Creator, and then he enters (through that picture of the world) inwardly and starts feeling that picture in a deeper sense, and he researches it.
And that is what they explain to us in the wisdom of Kabbalah. What does The Book of Zohar talk about? It talks about the systems, the worlds that work around our world. How do they know it? Because they entered them and felt them, and that is given to each and every one. Their use is the knowing what forces work and how to manage better in the world, both in this world and in the world that awaits one.