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Bold: Questions and comments
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Regular: Commentaries of Michael Laitman
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lowercase italics: emphasized words
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Capitalized Italics: transliteration from Hebrew
Question: To continue the question about the role of Internet that you answered during the last show, what about our sensation of nature? What about smelling a flower, going to the beach, feeling another person, looking at one’s eyes? How does that happen if we connect through the Internet?
Michael Laitman: If we approach nature, we actually step down from the level of man. I really like nature myself and sometimes go there to relax. It is pleasant and good, and I understand that. But precisely by this we are actually similar to the corporeal levels of still, vegetative, and animate within us. These levels demand this contact, this sight, this touch, this sensation, smelling and sensing nature this way. But the level of man within us is the more inner level that’s found within us, within my bestial body. And it demands the internality of things, understanding the meaning of life, the essence of life and the purpose of it. And accordingly, we explain the connection with other people: what for and why do we act this way?
And therefore, precisely the Internet and different virtual types of communication actually allow us not to look at each other’s external, corporeal, beastly form and perhaps even skip the difference between the automatic translation with this or that language. Our technology develops towards this; we can even give commands to our computers and they’ll understand us. So our future is that we do have to be connected all around the world, but in a virtual way, and then from a virtual way to a spiritual way. And I see that many people are attracted to this, and whether we like it or not, we will come to that.
Moderator: Rabbi Shimon with his students once came into a cave in order to write The Book of Zohar, and that was something very natural, and much understood.
M. Laitman: Why? When a Kabbalist goes some place alone…
Moderator: Not just that he secludes himself, but it’s a natural place, the situation, he connects to people, all is very natural. And then two thousand years later we’re going to write some book…
M. Laitman: …we’ll write that book in our virtual cave. Cave means that we, perhaps a few million people, are in our own virtual world, where we feel ourselves wrapped by some virtual bubble that is isolated from the world, because the world has completely foreign thoughts and desires than ours. And we’re there, just like Rabbi Shimon with his students, who were just ten people, so we can be ten million people.
The number doesn’t matter; if you are all in one opinion, in one heart, in one thought, then you’re as one. And I see that the Internet gives us an answer here for all of humanity’s expectations and demands to be as one, for all the corrections that we have to undergo, to unite as one, because all people have to be united as one. How can we connect otherwise?
Moderator: Why will the feeling of connection between people flow through the Internet much better than physically?
M. Laitman: Because then a person will not be affected by the other’s externality, but by the other’s heart, desires, thoughts and inclinations. Not seeing the other person doesn’t matter as much. It seems to you that you do see the other people and they do see you, but the fact is that we don’t find any connection by that. On the contrary, that external, beastly form, in our animate level,” our bodies,” only makes it difficult for us.
I see something that looks beautiful and I think it is the truth. I see an ugly person and I reject him. And perhaps, he is some old person that doesn’t know how to express himself, but he is a genuine true person who has some special force. If you could see our patriarch Abraham, Moses or Rabbi Shimon in our days, I don’t think you would be impressed by them. Do you know in which form they were? Not that of some Hollywood stars? Try to think of the sandals and cloth they wore think about their teeth. Actually it’s funny, but there’re fables about it, that they used to close their mouths to not show their teeth.
We don’t understand that this external form is opposite to man’s interior spirituality and therefore, the Internet precisely allows us to better connect with the man within us. And therefore, I’m very happy to see that our generation is going towards organizing all kinds of societies and environments in many ways, and it doesn’t matter for the time being, their goals, but people look for connection between masses of people, as broad as possible.
And gradually, all the nonsense will filter out. And people, who really look for being together, understand that they can get a lot of use of the Internet. Especially us, who are already aiming to attain the purpose of life, understand that the corruption is only in the connection between people, and if we correct that connection, then we go to the spiritual level between us.
Moderator: So our viewer who asked the question will not be looking into another person eyes?
M. Laitman: We won’t feel people this way; we’ll feel another person’s desire for the purpose of creation. I don’t want to know more than that. Why do I care if that person is named Julia, she’s twenty years old, she looks good, if she has children or she doesn’t, and all of that. What I care for is the essence of man. I have to connect to their points in the hearts, and I think the Internet will answer this.
Question: This week there was a survey that was published, saying that forty five percent of the poor in Israel reduced or almost completely stopped buying food. And twenty eight percent of all the population decreased the amount of food that they buy. The title was, “More people will find themselves with empty tables in the High Holidays.” I know that the wisdom of Kabbalah is the solution, but what can you do with these incidents? We can’t just close our eyes in light of these findings.
M. Laitman: Eventually we will have to arrange our life to work according to different principles. You can’t take from the rich and give to the poor, because that won’t stop the poverty. We have to arrange society at its basis, so that it won’t be divided this way, and to begin with, people have to be educated. I think that creating a country where everyone works and everyone benefits, and everyone makes a living respectfully is a necessary thing, and it has to be as a national goal.
The problem is that we don’t build people. Our people existed according to the principle of “love thy friend as thyself,” before the destruction of the Temple and going into exile. And since that principle was lost, we came into exile and we stopped being a people. If we want to be people again, then we have to go back to the principle “love thy friend as thyself.” And that has to be a condition for us in order to be a country, or to be a nation, or people.
Today we’re not a nation or a people, because we don’t have a connection between us. We just live here out of necessity, because we have no place else to run to. But everyone would be willing to leave, and if they wouldn’t then, give them a slightly more difficult condition than they have right now and they would like to leave.
The problem is so to say, that after these sixty years of independence, we have to approach our true independence. With the right basis of the connection between the people of the nation, we will also build a just distribution. We won’t take from one and give to another, but the system of the country will be based out of love and connection between people. And that is the proper form to be for the people of Israel. Of course, we have no right of existence if we won’t do it.
Of course, there will be a great gap between rich and poor and we won’t be able to be a prospering country if we don’t build ourselves as a people. This is what Baal HaSulam already has written about, a hundred years ago, in the beginning of the establishment of the country. He had talks with Ben Gurion, Rav Kook, and with people who were really the founders of this place. He wanted to show them the true principles of the people of Israel, but they didn’t want to hear him.
Today we begin to see that all those honorable people, so to speak, who built the nation, were a bit wrong. Therefore, unfortunately we have neither a nation nor a people... I’m a Zionist, if you want to call it this way, meaning that I care about the people coming back to Zion, into their frontiers, to their people. Unfortunately, I see that we don’t have any principles or a spiritual constitution on which we can base or build ourselves.
And that principle is an ancient principle, coming from Abraham, the founder of the nation. The members of his group, from which the people of Israel were created, gathered according to the principle “love thy friend as thyself.” Israel is not some natural nation; it’s a nation that can only be a nation on the condition that there’s love among the members.
Question: What is the Kabbalistic meaning of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year?
M. Laitman: Rosh Hashana is the beginning of man’s development; the world was created five days before Rosh Hashana, in twenty fifth of Elul. So, Rosh Hashana is the creation of man, meaning that the Rosh Hashana is the beginning of the spiritual development, from which we start to develop. And what do we celebrate? We celebrate the state from which we come out of the corporeal framework and start rising in spiritual degrees. Rosh Hashana is actually the beginning of the essential spiritual change in man’s life. That’s the inner meaning of it.
It is when a person decides to start ascending from his beastly corporeal life, from just trying to fulfill his time with something. He wants to live this life with a goal and see how he advances. While being in this world, he wants to attain spirituality, and the Creator. These two worlds, the Upper Eternal One and our present, lower one, will connect together. It means that he knows that in each and every step he’s making in this world, he also advances in the Upper World. He doesn’t feel any difference whenever he moves between this world and the next world. These two worlds connect as one. He doesn’t feel life and death and he enters eternity. This is what we ought to do. This is called going through Rosh Hashana, when one decides to do that.
Question: I heard more than once that people got crazy from studying Kabbalah or The Zohar. Is this true regarding those who study Kabbalah the wrong way?
M. Laitman: You can’t study Kabbalah incorrectly, because one who studies Kabbalah incorrectly doesn’t study Kabbalah. You can open up any book and interpret it the way you like. Studying Kabbalah correctly is according to the principles that the sages of Kabbalah prepared for us to begin with. It means that one has to study from the authentic sources, from one who is authorized to teach, and from one who studied with a known Kabbalist. And this is how Kabbalah, which is the tradition (that is another explanation for it) moves, as something that is passed on from a teacher to a student.
One who studies it correctly without materializing it, without imagining all kinds of demons, spirits and evil things, or corporeal actions, or holy water and red strings, then there’s no fear of getting crazy, I’ve never seen it. There is no fear, if he doesn’t think that some corporeal costumes can influence spirituality, and he understands that there’s no connection between spirituality and corporeality, such as rituals and so on, or between anything that a person does with his body: if he understands that all of that is not connected to the true wisdom of Kabbalah, and learns the right way.
I have students all over the world and presently we have about two million students. And in our academy we also see our students in practice, we are virtually connected to [with] all of them and there’s nothing to get crazy about. It is a wisdom. When you study physics, do you get crazy? The same thing is with the wisdom of Kabbalah, like Baal HaSulam writes to us. Kabbalah is the physics of the spiritual world, and there’s no chance of getting crazy here. Crazy from what? You learn the laws of the world. The Creator in Gematria Elokim means nature. We study nature as a whole: how we operate, how we are operated, how we can influence nature and how it influences us. What is the danger here?
I have been engaged in Kabbalah for thirty years and I have a lot of students. And as a scientist myself, even before the wisdom of Kabbalah, and as one who engaged in philosophy, I never saw such an incident.
People are afraid of it because Kabbalists themselves, in ancient times, in the times of exile, when it was forbidden to study the wisdom of Kabbalah scared the common people like trying to scare a small child. They said that you can get crazy from it. But Baal HaSulam writes about it very clearly in the introduction of Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of Ten Sefirot). There, he gives answers to why Kabbalist wrote that you can’t study before the age of forty, and why they wrote that you have to get married, and have to first study Shas and Poskim, and why there’s fear of getting crazy.
All these rejections from the wisdom of Kabbalah were invented by the Kabbalists themselves in order to distance the people from Kabbalah, because it was the time of the exile and in the exile we couldn’t engage in it. Today we are after the exile. We are in stages of redemption, and we actually must renew the wisdom of Kabbalah and study it.
And Baal HaSulam writes that as much as we study and disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah among all people, then we will reach correction and redemption faster. Baal HaSulam says even more, he says that the expansion of the wisdom of Kabbalah all over the world is called the Messiah’s horn, meaning that it is our debt. We must open up the wisdom of Kabbalah to everyone, to all the nations of the world, and this is called the Messiah’s horn. I remember how happy my teacher, RABASH was when those writings of Baal HaSulam were published.
Question: What does a man look for in a woman? Should she be quiet and nice or should she be as she is?
M. Laitman: Both man or woman or child, a boy or girl, and even animals and fish, or even trees, look for how to enjoy, because the matter of creation is a desire to enjoy, a desire to be fulfilled. If we have genes, hormones, desires, thoughts, we want to be fulfilled by them. A woman looks to a man as a sexual source of pleasure, or having someone to be with, to be in an organized home, with a bed, food and to have a family with. So what does a man look for in a woman? It depends on the man, how mature he is and what exactly he is attracted to. That’s more or less how we are arranged in our life.
If the man is more mature, he already understands that the woman can also be a spiritual partner for him and thus he looks for such things in a woman Then, of course, he might not marry a woman just because she is beautiful, or even if she is a good cook, or a good homemaker, or even a good mother. First of all, he looks for her spirituality, whether she’s attracted to the same goal that he is, and all the rest of the things somehow fall in place.
So everyone chooses according to their interest. Of course, a normal person who doesn’t belong to the wisdom of Kabbalah, what influences him more is usually if the woman can be a good homemaker, or provide for his sexual desires, and according to their combination of desires. It’s hard to say, but we see that people get married, and later some of them are happy about it and some of them aren’t. This is really unpredictable.
I don’t see it as an object of research, like the sociologists and psychologists like to do, because it gives them a lot of publicity afterwards. I deal with all these things in the condition that there’s a spiritual coupling that is in addition to the corporeal coupling.
Moderator: What do you mean by spiritual coupling?
M. Laitman: Between a man and a woman there’s a desire for a spiritual connection between them towards the Creator, as it says, “Man, woman and the Devine presence among them.” Then they have a special spiritual connection. We can already see this type of connection among my students. I can see that more and more such couplings appear.
Question: I have a grand daughter who is six years old and she always fights with others. She bites, throws things and breaks things. She is angry at people, and she cries without reason or without anything being done to her. We don’t really understand what’s going on with her. Can we get an answer from you?
M. Laitman: It sounds like some hyperactive phenomenon that your child might have and you have to treat her either by medications or by the psychologists. I’m not the expert in this, but unfortunately this phenomenon is more and more common in our days, because man’s ego is increasing. The human ego is increasing, and we see this in our times within the young generation.
Moderator: What does it have to do with the ego?
M. Laitman: Man’s ego develops from generation to generation and we have reached a generation, where we have to correct our ego. Therefore, our children and especially our grandchildren, and I can talk from my own experience. I see how aggressive and hasty they become, and how much they are operated, as if there is a spring that’s constantly pushing them to do things. And in one or two generations before, children were much calmer.
Therefore, what can I tell you? It’s not a question for me. From the wisdom of Kabbalah I can tell you the reason for it: the constantly, steadily growing egoism. What is the solution for it based on Kabbalah? I see one solution; the Light that Reforms against the ego. As it says, “The Creator created the evil inclination and the Torah as a spice for it.” We need it even for the young and for the children.
Both, the Gaon of Vilna and Rav Kook says the same about the children: they say that you can teach children from the age of six, seven, eight, nine, the wisdom of Kabbalah in the way that suits them. It influences them because it brings them the Light. They don’t have to understand a lot and we don’t need to confuse them too much. The main thing is to use the original sources, in a very simple, easy way and that brings a person the Lights, the remedy and corrects him, because only that can fix our nature.
Question: Why are there so many rich people in the world, and on the other hand people are struggling to survive? Do rich people have a spiritual soul or a spiritual role in this world or in the spiritual world? Many rich people donate their money to others...
M. Laitman: Yes, but it doesn’t matter whether they donate or not. It’s not really them who donate, they’re just given these urges to donate. In this world all the souls divide and get distanced from one another and everything is done from Above and is influenced from Above. This world is the world of consequences. All the differences between souls and between people in this world are connected to this process, because everything stems from the soul. From the world of Infinity all the souls come down through five worlds to this world
Therefore, one who’s poor and one who’s rich is all rooted from Above. Like it says that the Creator looks at a drop of semen and says, “This one will be rich, this one will be poor, this one will be smart, or stupid.” Except for one thing: He doesn’t say whether one will be righteous or a sinner, meaning it depends on a person how he uses what is given in him. But all the rest of the things are not determined by us, it all comes to us from the root of our soul. According to the root of my soul I have to be born with specific conditions, and qualities, to a specific family and everything, except the realization of my goal to attain spirituality in my life here.
Moderator: Does a rich person have a special role or not?
M. Laitman: Rich and poor have roles in this world, but it’s not about whether they give money or not, but attaining the root of their soul.
Question: What is the meaning of the verse, “Women have a light knowledge?” What does it mean in spirituality and corporeality?
M. Laitman: There’s no connection of the verse that says, “Women have a light knowledge,” in spirituality and corporeality. In spirituality, the one who bestows and gives is called ‘a male,’ and the one who receives is called ‘a female.’
There’s no gender in spirituality. In spirituality each and every soul, when it connects to others and bestows, is called a male, and when it receives, it is called a female. It turns out that each and every one of us has to be both, somewhat of a male and somewhat of a female. I can not give without receiving, and I can not receive without giving, because we’re all as cells in one body, doing this reciprocal work of receiving and giving.
So in spirituality that verse means that when I work as a woman or in a part of my soul when I work as a female, I have no reason. Because when I am missing that: I have only what’s called the Light of Hassadim (mercy), and not the Light of Hochma (wisdom), because either I don’t give unless I receive, or I don’t receive anything.. And therefore, it says that there’s no reason, or the reason is small. On the other hand, when I give, meaning to give in order to bestow, I work with my vessels both in reception and in giving, then through me passes the Light of Hochma, and that means that I have Hochma (reason), and I have Daat (knowledge).
And the same thing happens to each and every one of us in our life. I would say that women have much greater intellect and capacity to make decisions, in a much more healthy way that’s closer to nature, and makes fewer mistakes than men.
Moderator: It sounds opposite.
M. Laitman: It’s not opposite. In spirituality and corporeality these things are not like the branch and root. Where do you see man in this world according to the spiritual definition? They all want to take, exploit, steal and receive from others. So do they work potentially as “males” or as “females”? Of course, as “females,” moreover, as the corrupted ones. A corrected female means a woman that is Hafetz Hesed, the one that doesn’t want anything for herself. Because she can’t bestow, she is in Hafetz Hesed, meaning that she limits herself and doesn’t use her ego. And that form of women in corporeality is closer in that degree than men, while towards spirituality it’s the opposite. There, the man can not advance without a woman giving him her desire. Precisely in spirituality, we need the force of the woman.
Question: As parts of the same soul, I understand that we’re all interdependent even without being aware of it, but on the other hand, every person contains the whole world. Therefore, I’d like to know what the level of dependency is that we’re supposed to have. Should we increase it or on the contrary, should we look at ourselves as individuals and unite only our points in the hearts?
M. Laitman: In the wisdom of Kabbalah we’re only talking about the points in the hearts, because that’s called the posterior of Nefesh (soul) of Kedusha (holiness).
I have a heart, and my heart means all of my desires: to drink, to eat, to enjoy, sex, power, honor, respect, knowledge, and everything. That is all together called man’s heart, a big, black heart. Within that heart there’s a point, and by the heart becoming really dark, when I feel darkness in life, that nothing moves forward, and I see that this life just doesn’t satisfy me, when I start to really feel dissatisfaction, then within my heart a point starts to shine. It is called a point in the heart.
That point tells me the truth. In this world you won’t find an answer, but above it, a bit to the side, you will find an answer for your desire to be fulfilled. And that point attracts me a little bit each time, beyond all the business that I have in this world, and all the conducts of this world. This is called the point in the heart.
If I develop that point in the heart, I find the wisdom of Kabbalah. And the whole wisdom of Kabbalah works specifically on that point. It works in order to inflate that vey tiny point, increase it, and grow it, in order to inflate it into a sphere like a ball in which I start to feel myself in eternal life. Then that ball will be called a soul. In the meantime it’s just a point in the heart that one has.
Moderator: Let’s go back to the question, “How should a person look at himself?” What should be the level of dependency between us?
M. Laitman: The dependency is in the point in the heart. We have to be dependant upon the points in the hearts between us. If we will rely on each other’s points in the hearts together, that mechanism will be called the soul of Adam ha Rishon (the First Man). And the form of interconnection is called Arvut (mutual guarantee), which is the condition for the reception of the Torah, which means the reception of the Upper Light that will then shine on us. And when that Upper Light will shine on each and everyone’s points in the heart that join together, then we will be as one man in one heart, in one soul, and then that sensation of life will be a sensation of eternal life.
Question: In your lectures I hear that it is possible to see God, but in the Torah it says more than once, “One who sees God dies.” This means we can’t see God. We see Him with the angel of God that meets certain people. Anyway, that’s what is written about it. So why do you say that it is possible to see the face of God?
M. Laitman: I meant the revelation of the Creator, to discover and reveal Godliness. The Upper Force has many names, and in the wisdom of Kabbalah every name has a different meaning. I’m talking about what we do discover, and we discover what’s called the Creator. That form of Godliness that is being revealed within us, called the Creator, it is composed of two words: Bo Re’eh, come and see.
This means that a person attains, and sees the Creator. Where does he see the Creator? Within himself; the Creator clothes within man. What does it mean? Within my corrected desires, there the forms of the desires themselves in their corrected forms bring me the sensation of what Godliness means. Where does it come from? As it says in the Torah, “I created man in God’s shadow.” Meaning, man was created in the Creator’s shadow.
It means that while we develop, we do so in an opposite form to the Creator. If I take that egoistic opposite form and I invert it, correct it in order to bestow from unfounded hatred to love of others, then I reach the form of Godliness within me, and I become as the Creator. And from that, I know, I understand, and I see Him, because He is clothed within me. And that clothing of the force of bestowal and love within me is called Dvekut (adhesion), and it is when a person unites with Elokim, the Creator. He and I become as one.
And this is what each and every person should achieve; this is, basically the purpose of creation. This is the reason we exist in this world, so that throughout this life we have to discover Godliness in a way that the Creator is revealed within us.
Question: I’m new to Kabbalah, and I’m in an environment where all people are filled with ego. I call it a walking ego. I feel that it’s hard for me to be with them all of the time, because it’s empty and boring for me. Am I supposed to keep my connections to a small extent or I should just find people who are similar to me spiritually?
M. Laitman: According to what we learn from the article The Freedom, the article about free choice by Baal HaSulam, what influences one in the attainment of the purpose of his life is only the environment. Therefore, we have to change our environment. The question is what can we do? I work, I have a bank, there is a kindergarten with my children, and I behave like everybody else. No one on the street, if they don’t know me from the television or from the radio, or anything, knows about anything special or not about me. They don’t know whether I study Kabbalah or not, because I relate to everyone equally. People just look at me, other than the students or people who know me, they just see some Jewish person from Israel. Who knows? That’s it.
Moderator: You’re saying don’t change anything externally. Still, what does it mean, as you said to enter an environment that’s spiritual?
M. Laitman: In order to develop the point in the heart, in order to develop myself spiritually I must be in a spiritual environment that moves to the same goal as I am. Then I’ll be strengthened by that group, and along with it I will come to the goal. We have to sail together, because in the connection between us we discover the spiritual goal. In the connection, which is not somewhere out there it’s in the connection between us, when we connect our desires for spirituality.
The people who don’t have that spiritual goal should just be treated in a nice, pleasant way, and that’s it. To my parents, to my relatives, and to people at work or anyone wherever I am, it’s forbidden for people to know what’s going on within me. This is what Kabbalah tells us to do. Be nice and ordinary to anyone and with the group, where I’m connected with people who have the same spiritual goal, different laws prevail.
Moderator: Let’s say, someone studies through the Internet, or through the television.
M. laitman: He or she needs to get into a group of the students of Kabbalah, who yearn for the same goal, and by mutual support he will see how we influence him and give him forces to advance. On your own, you can’t advance in Kabbalah. It’s either with others or nothing.
Question: In lessons you talk a lot about” the Guards” and the difficulties that we meet on our path. The question is what is the goal of the Creator in giving us success, or material success, like success at work or something like that? It inflates our ego. What should we do about it? Do we have to reduce or go with the flow?
M. Laitman: Go above it. Accept all the success and say thanks. I hope that your success is not based on disturbing and robbing other people of what they need. So if your success is a human success, say “Thank you,” no problem. But the main thing is that it won’t influence your spiritual advancement. You have to transcend that corporeality and always be higher than corporeality with your spiritual goal. You kind of hover or sail above.
It doesn’t matter what happens on the level of this world. Sometimes there’s a success, and sometimes there’s a decline. You have to be dependent upon your spirituality.
Question: I didn’t really understand the term Reshimo (reminiscence). I also don’t really understand why everyone has a specific situation in life for a spiritual development? What creates that specific situation?
M. Laitman: We can put it this way. All of us came here to this world from the world of Ein Sof, infinity. Let’s say, there’s such a world above, but there’re no places here, but it’s somewhere above. And then through levels of one hundred and twenty five degrees we came down to a state called this world, and we are here in this world.
Now it’s time when we have to start rising back from this world, level by level, one hundred and twenty five levels back to infinity, Ein Sof. This is what we’re facing, that’s our path. Like it or not, we have to go through it, and realize it either by blows or by agreeing to it in advance.
Every time I’m in a specific situation, there’s a next state ahead of me, which I don’t identify or feel. I don’t sense it and I don’t even realize it. And if so, then I’m forbidden to know my future. But I have to understand that there’s Reshimo, information within me about my next state, and I can’t determine a thing about it, because in the same way the soul came down from level to level, it has to rise from level to level, to take on the same forms it descended from.
The levels from top down and the levels from bottom up are the same. But, what is the difference? The difference is that I have to climb from down to upwards out of my own desire... This is what the Creator demands of us. Why? He wants us to go back to that state of infinity, when we’re connected with Him of our own accord. I myself want to propel myself upwards.
What is the Reshimo? It is all the data that exists within me about the Upper level. What’s missing is the Light that Reforms, an illumination that reforms me, that brings me to the Upper state, which is called better than my state. So in the same way that the inner data, or information, like genes, and hormones develop in the corporeal body, we also have a spiritual gene, Reshimo.
I only have to bring the Light towards it, which is called the Light that reforms. And when the Light affects that Reshimo, it raises me, and it raises the Reshimo to a Upper level. This is called Reshimo. So Reshimo is an informative part within me about the next state and it is realized by the Light. How do I attract the Light? I attract the Light by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah.
During the time of the study I study about my next more advanced state, and the Light shines on me from there, from afar, as it works on my Reshimo. Then it realizes the Reshimo in a way that I raise to the Upper level. I get the Reshimo and the Light from the next level. I only need to make the meeting between them, to make them influence one another.
Moderator: If a person has nothing to do with spiritual development, he doesn’t attract the Light, he doesn’t do anything from the process you’ve described. Does he also go through situations in life, states in life?
M. Laitman: Right, in our corporeal life we’re also developed by Reshimo. It’s the same gene, like what biologists discover today, that everyone has genes by which they develop, they find the reason today for anything that happens to man. That’s also the Reshimo. There’s a corporeal Reshimo and the spiritual Reshimo, but it’s always the Reshimo. There’s nothing that can somehow happen without a reason.
My next state is predetermined, but I shouldn’t care about what’s predetermined or not. What I care about is that I make it be realized, I reach it on my own, and that I awaken the Light to affect the Reshimo. I’m the operator, I’m the one who operates the Light over the Reshimo, and then the picture is realized.
Moderator: I don’t know that there’s a Creator that gives, or bestows. I can read about it for days, but not feel it. How am I supposed to become more pure with everything that happens to me, even though I don’t feel the reason? I mean, should I refer to and unite everything with “there’s no one else besides Him,” regardless of whether I feel that or not? It just doesn’t matter what I do, I want to unite everything with the goal?
M. Laitman: The order is simple: forget about everything. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a natural wisdom. What do I mean? You don’t need wisdoms to develop. Just like you know what bread means, what water means, what is to sleep, to feel the air, or to watch the sun. Just like your body feels nature we have to approach the spiritual nature in the same way, without wisdoms or arguments or interpretations, in a simple way.
You don’t need to equip yourself with any facts or knowledge, and you only need one thing; to understand yourself better and better. How? It is by reading about it in the books of Kabbalah, but not in order to get smarter. But because when you read about your spiritual more advanced state, then from those greater states the Light shines on you, in your present state.
And then you just start understanding everything in a simple way, without too much wisdom, but it just becomes more and more lucid and understood what’s happening in your life. It’s a process, and it takes time. You go through confusions and some vagueness in your understanding and sensations and then everything becomes clear again. It’s a process, but it has to be a pleasant, natural process, because you just study yourself, and about yourself. All the books talk about you, only.
Therefore, you don’t need to listen to all kinds of terms, like faith above reason. What did he say, “There’s no one else besides Him”? What will it give you to try to follow this principle? It won’t give you anything. They say, “There’s no one else besides Him.” So what, do I know it or understand it, or do I know what they’re talking about? Therefore, forget about all those slogans. Of course, they are true and they are of a higher truth, and the real truth, but it’s not for us now. Later it will be discovered and revealed in a simple way, in a plain way.
The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t demand anything, but a natural relation of a person, because it opens up your soul. You’re demanded to recognize your soul, to feel it and to receive the Eternal life within it. So good luck!
Question: The Creator is not an image, so how do we reach Him?
M. Laitman: The Creator is not an image; yes and no. It says, “He created man in His image and His shadow.” There’re many verses about it, but forget about the verses. In a more simple way, one gets to know what the Creator is, if he tries to be similar to the Creator. Therefore, he is called Adam, from the word ‘ Dome,’ similar to the Creator. So we have to become Adam (a man).
If I correct my entire ego to bestowal and love, then I already take on the form of Godliness, the form of the Creator and that’s how I get to know Him. That is called, “By Your actions we will know You.” By the corrected me, I will know who the Creator is. And then, according to the extent that I correct myself, how much I become similar to the quality of the Creator, and of bestowal and love like Him, then accordingly, I will sense Him.
We will get closer to one another to the point that we will bond with each other, as if there’s no difference between us, like a hug, where everyone becomes integrated with the other. This is what everyone has to achieve, and this is the purpose of creation. One who wants to get to it should try harder and he’ll get to that faster.
Question: Man’s corporeal states are divided to past, present and future. Are the spiritual states divided the same way? For instance, can you divide the Sefirot, or the spiritual fulfillments according to spiritual times? I understood that in spirituality there is cause and effect, so it seems that there’s no present, there’s only past and future, cause and consequence.
M. Laitman: No, first of all, we learn that everything that exists in corporeality comes down from spirituality. The spiritual forces descend, build matter and give a form to matter. Therefore, in our world in the wisdom of Kabbalah we learn the material Kabbalah and the formative Kabbalah. This is what has to do with the wisdom of Kabbalah, first of all.
Secondly, these times, past, present and future also exist in spirituality and, therefore, they exist in corporeality as well. And past, present and future in spirituality is described like this: future are the Lights that are above my vessels, above the state of receiving them, and later they descend, and this is called Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) that turns to the Inner Light. When I receive it, it is called present and when it leaves me, it creates the past; Teamim and Nekoudot when the Lights depart from me. Thus, there are past, present and future in spirituality as well. In our world there’s a replica of past, present and future.
Question: How is it possible to transcend the will to receive? What is the inner thought that I should cling to? Can you give me more tools?
M. Laitman: A simple advice is to become integrated with a group that gives the importance to rise above the corporeal desire or to receive for oneself. According to this, with that group and on your own you have to study. In the time of the study the Light will influence that desire and realize it, that’s it, simple as that. You get a desire from the group to rise to the level of bestowal, you study together with the group and you get the Light that brings you to that level of bestowal.
Moderator: What does it mean to become integrated with the group? A person who watches the lesson on TV with Bnei Baruch, does this mean to be integrated?
M. Laitman: He has to be connected with others as well through works of dissemination, studying together, by corresponding with others, and receiving an influence from them. This is what Baal HaSulam writes about in the articles of Matan Torah (The Revelation of Godliness) and Arvut. This is what RABASH writes about in all of his articles that talk about the society. The whole wisdom and the next world are attained in the connection between the souls.
In the breakage we fell from spirituality, because our souls got distanced from one another and started hating one another. If we connect our souls above hatred with love and connection, then we attain spirituality there. So without a group you can’t do it. A group means the souls that want to connect.