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Bold: Questions/Comments
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Regular: Commentaries of Michael Laitman, PhD
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lowercase italics: emphasized words
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Capitalized Italics: Transliteration from Hebrew
Question: Does Kabbalah know what will happen here on earth in ten thousand years?
Michael Laitman: In ten thousand years nothing will happen here on earth because there will be neither earth nor our universe.
This is so because our world seems the way it is to us through our uncorrected senses. The moment we correct our senses, we start to rise, to feel a different sort of reality. Also this world is included in the spiritual world, and we will feel only the spiritual reality.
Today, it seems like a fantasy or something unrealistic. What is actually unrealistic and a fantasy is this reality. It is both temporary, and false. We feel it only in our senses and not outside ourselves as it truly is. We have to correct our senses through a period of six thousand years starting from Adam ha Rishon (the First Man), which means we have two hundred and twenty-something years left.
Adam ha Rishon is the first man who started correcting his soul. Prior to him people had been living for many years. But five thousand seven hundred and eighty years there was a man called “Adam,” who discovered Divinity and the universe for the very first time in its true way and form, with all of its concealed forces. He also found out why we are developing and what is at the end of this development. He wrote all of this in a book called Raziel ha Malach (The Angel Raziel) and he was the first Kabbalist.
Moderator: Does this mean we have to go through that same process, to feel that spiritual reality you talked about?
M. Laitman: Yes. And after we have all gone through it, we’ll simply feel a different sort of reality. We’ll feel a spiritual reality, and this corporeal reality will be swallowed within the spiritual reality and we won’t feel it. We simply won’t feel it in the same way as I don’t feel what is happening within my body now. The main thing now is my life, that I’m on the level of a human, but I don’t feel all those phenomena within me. Similarly, I won’t feel the phenomena in this world, but only those in a higher existence.
Moderator: Please, describe the instant that this happens. Let’s say a second before this I’m driving my car and you’re sitting in your office; a second went by and all the people finished correcting themselves. Then what happens?
M. Laitman: Gradually, as they correct themselves, they begin to start sensing, feeling and living at a higher reality; they identify with Upper Forces.
The lower reality disappears because our five bodily senses will seemingly not be felt, it will be as if they evaporate. I accept this world because I’m built in such a way where I hear, see, taste, breath, i.e., I use the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. They give me a sensation of living in reality. If I had different senses, I would feel a different reality.
Moderator: So, for as long as I have these senses I still feel this world. This is what I’m asking about. When does this world evaporate and disappear from our existence as you mention? Does it happen all of a sudden?
M. Laitman: It doesn’t happen suddenly. It happens gradually, because, as people begin to unite and rise in spiritual levels, these senses stop being felt within us. It can be compared to how we don’t feel the inanimate or vegetative or even the animate in our body. Do I feel my nails or my hair growing? This is called the vegetative of my body. I don’t feel it. It grows, or it doesn’t. I can cut it and it grows. It doesn’t cause me any disturbance.
In this same way when I acquire the human level, I will not feel the animate degree as compared to it. And we all acquire it, the animate degree will not be felt. We will not perceive reality as solid in the way we do now. But, we will begin to perceive reality more and more in the form of powers and qualities.
Question: I have heard you say that a man sees in his wife a part that is his mother, and a woman should appreciate a man like a mother appreciates her child. What is the spiritual root for this sensation of the male? Why does the sensation exist and how can you use it to do good?
M. Laitman: Precisely, as I said, a man does not give birth nor the whole process that has to do with the changes in creation like a woman. She gives birth and refers to her baby, like the Upper One towards the lower one. A man does not have such changes. Therefore, something childlike remains in him, something babyish or childish; the big baby. If a woman relates to him in some ways as a mother, she truly touches the sensitive point in a man and by this, can bring a connection between the two.
It is so because there is mutuality in it. Ordinarily, according to the correct form of connection, a woman looks at a man, and a man looks at the Creator. The man brings from the Creator the abundance, and then, it is divided between him and the woman. This is the connection between them. This is on the one hand.
And on the other hand, according to what does the man bring the abundance from the Creator? This is according to the deficit that the woman passes on to him. This is to say, the man, rises to a Higher degree, or leaves his home in order to hunt, or exits the point where they live to a more spiritual degree, and brings the spiritual abundance. The woman supports this and gives this her deficit.
Moderator: So, where’s the motive here that a man’s wife is a bit like his mother? And although it seems sometimes that he is the operator, in truth she’s the mother, the one realizing things. He’s like a child.
M. Laitman: By bringing him this deficit, she is as if leading him by this. She directs him to go out and do. It is written, “Listen to what Sarah tells you.”
Question: Last week, the Irish declined to join the new European constitution. Many of the Europeans claim that they don’t want to be under one mutual European body. They are in favor of the union, but they don’t want to lose their identity. Can Europe stay in this union for long? What can we learn from this?
M. Laitman: Of course, it won’t succeed. We see that it doesn’t appeal to the whole common market. It’s a common market, but there is nothing in common between the people. The Italians hate the Germans, the Germans hate the French, and the French hate the English, etc. Until they receive the method that is above them and learn how to connect one to the other in mutual love, then this partnership only applies to the market and no more than that.
Therefore, they have truly given the European Union a correct name. It’s called “the common market.” This is what it was to begin with, and it hasn’t changed since then. Therefore, the Irish people are right not wanting to be in the same basket with the other thirty or so countries. Every nation wants to keep its identity, its culture and education, small differences that are precious to them.
Moderator: Isn’t it possible for countries to be in partnership and still keep their identity?
M. Laitman: Yes, if the partnership is a business partnership, but if the partnership is as they propose, like a mixture having no natural principles, then it has no feet to stand on.
Moderator: Can there be a partnership that will consider these natural principles where everyone will be as one, but nonetheless, within it, no-one loses his uniqueness?
M. Laitman: No; this is what Kabbalah says, “Each one is unique; each one according to the root of his soul, has a connection with the Creator and develops himself.” For each one, he himself, and only he, can fulfill his role towards humanity and no one can do this instead of him. However, we are all focused on one goal and one Creator. So, it turns out that you do not lose your identity, but vice-versa; you elevate it to the summit. This is so for each and every one. By this no one erases the other.
Moderator: I understand. So, it’s not that we simply yearn for a different sort of unity, but such a thing exists.
M. Laitman: There is such a thing, and it exists within a person. But, we don’t know how to correctly interpret it, and certainly are not able to realize it. It is only through the Upper Light that appears upon us when we study Kabbalah. Only It can do this.
Question: To learn Kabbalah, do you have to have a religious background? The religious people claim that to learn Kabbalah is like building a house and starting from the roof. What does the Rav Laitman think about this?
M. Laitman: First of all, today, using new technology, you could build houses from the roof. There are examples of these modern, special houses. But, to get to the point; there are no preconditions in order to study Kabbalah. The Kabbalists write about this; it’s not just something that I say. Whoever is against it doesn’t understand anything about Kabbalah and the internality of Torah. Therefore, there is no reason to listen to what they say.
You should proceed according to the advice of Kabbalists. They research the spiritual world, they have connection with the Creator, they reveal the Upper desire and they understand what they say. We have to follow them, and not follow people who do not have this sort of background or connection with spirituality, nor with the powers of the world or an understanding of all that happens.
We are at a time where the exile has ended. We returned to the land of Israel. And now, in Israel, we have to build the spiritual land, the spiritual nation of Israel, to reach the Third Temple, both the corporeal and the spiritual one. We have to build it here and now, the final correction that the Creator demands of us. This is what the Kabbalists who have a connection with Him tell us. If we follow this, we will succeed. If not, then we’ll continue to be punished.
Therefore, Kabbalah is open, not only for the people of Israel, secular and religious as one, but also for the whole world. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article Matan Torah, and in the articles, Arvut, The Peace, The Last Generation and The Horn of the Messiah. He says that the spread of the wisdom of Kabbalah among all nations is called the ‘Messiah’s Horn.’ And we have to understand how great this thing is. What we actually need in our times is to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah unconditionally. This will rid us of all the problems.
Question: What can you say about the game of chess? How is it possible to use it for connecting people and revealing the Creator?
M. Laitman: You can ask this about everything. It’s a very logical, ancient, smart game, a very special game. There is a lot of philosophy in it. I have come across a few people who study it from its inner side. They put a lot of emotion into it, mind, and powers and also all kinds of different interpretations.
But it’s not my field and I’ve never seen anywhere that it is connected in any way to Kabbalah or that the game itself comes from a certain mixture of spiritual forces. Of course, if man created it, there is the human foundation in there, undoubtedly, like any other thing we do in this world. But I cannot point at each move or role or rule in this game and say that it comes directly from Upper Sefirot.
Moderator: Let’s look at this in a different way. When I look at the chess game, I see a very, very individualistic game. There is me, there is the person I compete with and we are challenging each other. It is a game that needs tremendous abilities of thought and concentration; it is a very advanced game. If you and I play chess, how can we use this action for connection? Because it seems so distant; each player has this very personal, individual connection.
M. Laitman: This is in the beginning when they learn the rules. Afterwards, when chess masters finish with all of these competitions and competitiveness and play the game, they want to rise to a higher level. They want to see in it a higher mind.
I am following my mind and seeing reality this way and in your mind, you are seeing reality another way. Let’s try to connect your perception to mine and show each other what it is possible to do here. To see together with the internality of man, what happens in this game. In its depth we don’t struggle between ourselves, but combine both of our minds and thus look within it at its logic, its depth, the inner mind. The internality always comes from a combination.
Moderator: So then, is the most inner mind in reality the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes, and you can reveal a Higher level here. Why has man invented this game? Where does it come from? It comes because we, in this world, invent games in a competitive way. In spirituality, it’s always from connection. Let’s rise to the degree of connection and see all games and everything else in this way. We’ll play together, as a team. You can do it in football, and in anything that does not require the mind.
But the moment we begin to connect with others, with those who seemingly are our enemies, we connect above our nature to take advantage of each other.
We ask why it is happening here within, why we have this within us, how we invented these things, where it comes from. And the moment, instead of trying to use each other, we use our nature in order to rise above it and see what’s happening in there and then we reach a Higher, more spiritual root in everything.
Moderator: If we play football this way, maybe we’ll just sit down and think! But what do we do with the ball in the meantime? How will we play? It sounds difficult.
M. Laitman: Do it together with the game. I’m telling you. You have to delve into this and see all our struggles with ourselves, with others, with the game and in life, also with commerce. It doesn’t matter what. If we go above these things and both of us start scrutinizing and start looking from above at ourselves then we see how each one wants to do it: in one way or another. Asking why does it happen with us, where does it come from and how do we complete each other, despite our nature? Then we reach Higher Mind.
Question: I’m a mother of two children, aged ten and six and one-half. My ten year old daughter doesn’t help at home and she has stopped studying. She doesn’t ague, but she doesn’t do anything. For example, we’ve decided that she is a grown-up and can take on a role at home, like emptying the dishwasher. In practice she only does it after many reminders, and as a great favor. It is the same with anything we ask of her. We try to explain to her that we also have obligations. When we see that this doesn’t help; we tell her that we won’t fulfill her demands. In this event she begins to shout that we are always looking for revenge and the conversation becomes heated. This is happening on a daily basis. She only demands and demands and is not willing to contribute anything. What should we do? What should we change in our behavior in order to find a mutual language between us?
M. Laitman: Each one demands according to his or her nature. The parents want one thing, and the children want another thing, and it’s endless. She is ten, and maybe it’s not too late. We teach our children (at BB) much earlier than this and try to correct them before they become corrupted. The parents and the daughter have to sit together and they should not try to explain to her, but to learn together, watch some TV shows of ours. They have to show her that all the things she does will, eventually, cause her harm. Our lives, seemingly, are built in a way where the strong win and this therefore makes it hard to educate our children to give, donate and to consider others.
In all our media, we bring them the opposite form. All those heroes use force to conquer and defeat the others by killing them and by this, they succeed. It’s a great destruction that we bring to the next generation and ourselves. But together, we need to show the children the correct example, so they see that it is also important to us. We should not have struggles one against the other where we hear “I’m doing this and you’re doing that,” We should be doing things together and then it will be different.
Moderator: Do what together?
M. Laitman: First of all, begin looking for appropriate shows of ours on the Internet together. On TV, at the moment there are none. This is one thing.
Now concerning the dishwasher: Both the daughter and the mother should do this together. It’s a thing that the mother used to do, but now the daughter helps her and they do it together. At least start doing it this way, but all this educational information is on our site.
Question: If, according to Kabbalah, you decide to come to the eternal, spiritual state after the corporeal life, why does Judaism ascribe importance to the dead after he passes away? In other beliefs and religions, you simply burn the body. And besides that, what is the importance of a grave and memorial in the Jewish religion? After all, the body eventually rots.
M. Laitman: Truly, the body has no importance. Baal HaSulam said, “I don’t care where you bury my sack of bones.”
Our behavior towards the body results from our behavior towards the soul. The soul is built of its Guf (body), from the Kli (vessel) and the Light that fills it. So, the Kli is as important as the Light. Therefore, we ascribe this importance to the soul, and as a result we do all the things that we have to do spiritually in this world as signs. Therefore, we have the honor of the dead and all the things that we ascribe to this. In truth, there is no importance to the matter, according to the correction of the soul and to our role after one passes away.
Moderator: Let’s talk about the first part of the question, the burial. Why in Judaism do you bury the body, and not burn it?
M. Laitman: Once, it wasn’t this way. Once, you used to leave the body until the flesh disappeared, then the bones were collected and put in a special jar.
In spirituality, you bury the will to receive that dies; you bury it and then there is the revelation of the dead. Burying the desire to receive means that first of all, I define my desire as it is now, as egoistic and want it to die. This is when I begin to correct my egoistic desire.
Moderator: The way it is now, naturally?
M. Laitman: Yes, where I want to take advantage of everyone, steal, kill and the worst possible things in the world; everything exists in me. Then, I want it to be buried, i.e. to die, be buried, and rot completely away. This means that I’ve buried it and moreover, I’m happy to have buried it.
Later, after I have done this, there is an opposite action. After it completely rots, it has no further egoistic form. When I don’t use it, this means that I buried it. After detaching from the egoistic form of using all the desires, I can know them. This is called the “Revelation of the Dead.” Then I start to use all my same desires in order to bestow upon the others and to love the others. But this is in the opposite way and not for my own sake but for the sake of the others and it’s called the “Revelation of the Dead.” This is what we need to do. Our body has no connection with this and doesn’t belong to anything.
Moderator: This is something that symbolizes the inner process.
M. Laitman: Yes, as it was born from a drop of semen. In the same way it ends and rots.
Question: It was said during the morning lessons that the whole correction is done by the Light. In parallel, I see that the study is very elaborate regarding the processes we have to go through. Does this whole meticulous study give a person the feeling that they have control over this process and that the Upper Light does not do it?
M. Laitman: No, I would put it this way. In all of our Kabbalah studies we learn what part man has to do and what part the Light performs in us. I study both of these parts, i.e., how I have to prepare myself in order to invite the action of the Light that Reforms, and how this Light that reforms makes the changes within me.
When we have the completion of both of these parts and learn both of them together then there is the building of my appeal, my prayer and my true correct desire. Then I know exactly what to ask for and what is supposed to happen with me to the extent that I am prepared to identify and expect these future changes. Therefore we learn the future conditions, those that we haven’t reached yet, very precisely in order to build our correct appeal.
The Kabbalists who wrote these books for us, wrote them so that during the time of reading these books and from the study, we will draw precisely the Light that we need to advance and fulfill us; to that same level that we are learning about.
Question: Does our soul have a quality of memory?
M. Laitman: It’s not memory; it’s all the conditions we go through. They do not disappear, they simply accumulate, and this is what we use. This is called “the path of Torah.” Torah protects and saves when you engage in it and when you do not engage in it. The Light we acquire, the abundance we receive, the changes we go through, all remain whether I engage in them or I do not engage in them. They become a storage place of knowledge, power and understanding, and then from within it, I advance onwards.
Question: I have been studying Kabbalah for two years. As a person with no physical problems, is it possible to use Reiki, acupuncture, healing and different energetic therapies in order to balance myself in this world so as to attract success and other things to me?
M. Laitman: Success and luck depends on man’s physical and mental powers, not spiritual ones. Of course, if by different healings, he may be strengthened, then he should go ahead. However, he should not be confused into thinking there is some kind of spirituality in it. Maybe there is a strong psychological influence upon him and then he will have more confidence to go and achieve different things in the world. If he has weak nerves, he can go to a nerve doctor. The nerves are like the body’s electrical system. These medical conditions are for the doctor to cure. But he shouldn’t think that there is a connection to the soul here and that the soul is corrected by it. He is only correcting the inner part of the body, the mental part.
Moderator: Does this also refer to treatments on the energetic plane, those having nothing to do with man’s intervention?
M. Laitman: Sure, what does that matter if it is without man’s intervention? You see how a magnet works, without any intervention. This is the same thing. It has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality is much higher than this. It has no connection to that.
If, for the sake of his health, a person who studies Kabbalah has to go to a psychologist or a nerve doctor or to acupuncture, then he should go. It’s medicine.
Moderator: Yes, but many times in this world that is called “the treating of body and soul.” There is a certain philosophy that the healer transfers to the patient, a certain process of thinking, or internal observation.
M. Laitman: No, in his place I wouldn’t agree to this. I would say; please, take my body, influence it and tell me what exercises to do: what kind of massage or acupuncture I should receive. You can work on me. But, don’t ask me to take this path, purchase a new philosophy and use that to relate to the world. I do not agree with that. I have only one philosophy in life which is called the wisdom of Kabbalah and I’m going to see the world and behave in it, only in this way.
Question: What is a Bar Mitzva according to Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: This is something very great. Thirteen years (Yod Gimel Shanah) is called the time of Gadlut (adulthood). Until that point, a person is called small in his spiritual development. I’m talking about a person who could be forty or fifty in our world, and not a child that has reached the age of thirteen. He simply grows up and then there is this sign of thirteen years. I’m talking spiritually. Spiritually a Bar Mitzva means that a person becomes the implementing force, Bar Mitzva. A Mitzva (commandment/precept) is called the act of correction, where a man can implement this inner correction by himself and not that his parents will work for him.
Moderator: Do we have parents in spirituality?
M. Laitman: They are also called “Mother and Father.” When you rise to a Higher level you meet two forces, seemingly positive and negative, Father and Mother. They constantly take care of you, on the condition that you subjugate yourself to them, i.e., that you are a good boy. You’re a good boy when you subjugate but it is your ego that you subjugate. After thirteen, when you reach a degree higher than these thirteen years, there’s no longer such a Dad and Mom before you, but you’re in direct connection with the Creator.
They don't disappear; you’ve acquired those powers yourself. Now they are within you. You’re already grown up. Through all these powers that worked on you, which you’ve acquired during those thirteen years through the subjugation, you have now become their owner.
Question: What is your opinion regarding the sensitivity of men. Research has shown that from the moment they are born, men are more sensitive than women. Only because they have grown up with so many stigmas regarding what it means to be a man, i.e., to be strong, not to cry, etc. that they have, become aggressive. The question is, according to Kabbalah, does the spiritual root of a man determine that he has to be sensitive or aggressive?
M. Laitman: Neither; this only shows signs of a weakness. With all those big, strong Schwarzenegger type of guys, why do they have this urge to be strong? It is only because they lack inner confidence. By showing each child that he has to be macho in order to succeed in life, we destroy him. He then becomes bothered and frightened by this idea, since otherwise he can’t succeed. We see later on that it’s the opposite. All those strong macho guys go to work in construction and all those small weak ones become their managers.
So, Hollywood corrupts our younger generation. I’d put it this way. For girls, it’s much easier, because a woman has a protective power of the body that ties her to nature. Therefore she is stronger and more stable. This is so even with a daughter, when compared to a boy.
A boy doesn’t always know what is being demanded of him, because nature prepares him more for the inner work, for the connection with Divinity in a direct way. However, the woman connects through the man, and therefore, she is much more stable and also has the whole system of procreation and all that nature prepares for her. She has to be built more for stability in order to bring us the next generation.
Moderator: Sorry for interrupting you, but you surprised me when you said neither (when you were asked if a man has to be sensitive or aggressive). So, what does he have to be?
M. Laitman: We have two sides to our makeup, but we have to unite them together correctly. The proper education is when a man measures all of his success on his relationship to society, and as much as he wants, through society to connect to the Creator. If it is as broad as possible, then he will not be harmed. We are in a closed system that is nature, and the more we know the rules of the system and how to use them correctly, the more we will succeed.
Kabbalah explains these laws to us. The world can behave as it wants and I don’t need to bend it or demand a different sort of behavior from it. The more I’m connected to the whole world in the way that I want everyone to feel good, and through this good, i.e., my relationship to the world, I want to search within this good relation, for the Upper Force, then by this, I’m in balance with this general power called Divinity. This is the best protection I can attain for myself.
If we gradually teach a child this technique, he starts to feel this tremendous power working in the world and he starts feeling to what extent he is in connection with it. He has no problem with fear; he has no problem building muscles. We see that it doesn’t help in this life. He simply needs to be healthy, balanced and have strong nerves. The main thing is to understand how to be tied to the whole system of nature. A person who is tied to nature is the most confident person in life.
Moderator: Both aggressive and sensitive?
M. Laitman: He’ll have aggressiveness and sensitivity and all his powers will be balanced so that he will, in the most optimal way, function in each and every situation. So, all of these things will come to him in their own way.
I see it in our children (BB children) who grow up this way. They themselves don’t know what’s happening to them. But gradually, I see how they change in their behavior, their relationships, how they look at life. I see changes in their confidence when facing threatening things. I see how balanced they become; I don’t know any other word for it. The child does not fall (go down) or jump (go up), but along with the many powers that he suddenly has, the emotions and the reasoning and everything, together with that he is always in the middle as if around him is the whole world. He is constantly in the middle, like a ball that is in the water.
Question: Should we solve all or most psychological problems before we turn to spirituality?
M. Laitman: It depends on what kind. A person has to be as balanced as possible. He has to be what is called “normal.” According to the norm, twenty percent of the people walking on the street are mentally ill.
You can ask any doctor. These definitions of mental illness are not well defined. A man should understand that he simply has to take care of his health, as in any occupation he wishes to acquire. The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t demand that you be outstanding in anything.
Start studying; begin getting into simple materials, reading and seeing how it influences, how it works correctly and properly. You’ll reveal a whole world. You’ll find out how, suddenly, you will have more confidence, more understanding. Then later there will be some small confusion then again understanding and then again confusion. That’s the way it is, the day turns into night. It turns on and off as in our lives but, from moment to moment and day to day, you’ll feel that you’ve acquired a complete world. Then all this fog, all these questions will gradually start to dissolve. A person becomes freer, more confident and more connected to reality and less frightened. I recommend it to everyone.
Question: I heard you say that education is better for children if it is based on shame, rather than reward and punishment which are similar to training a beast. Shame, the way I perceive it, has to do with feelings of guilt. Could you clarify what you meant?
M. Laitman: Shame is a component of man. Only man has this quality of shame and can feel embarrassed. The animate cannot feel shame. Therefore, we should work subtly, in a steady and gradual way with a child to provoke within him this feeling of shame. For example to show him that it is not worthwhile for him to do this or that and if that suits him or not. He needs to be shown that he, nonetheless, is a man, or a child one way or another. If we awaken within him human degrees, we develop humanity in him, pride in being man and show him that he can’t do everything, he is not capable of this or can’t allow himself to do that.
So, this is a feeling of shame. Later on, a different sort of shame comes, when I want to use others, when I want to steal something i.e., someone’s idea, or take something belonging to another, etc.
So, if he gradually accepts this feeling, he will no longer behave this way. Everywhere he will behave like Adam (a man/human). Look how we drive on the roads. Look how we want to push and cut people off. Look at what happens with us. If he feels shame over what happens with him, it will build him as a human being, an Adam. Otherwise, you can’t build an Adam, except on this foundation.
Moderator: I want to give you an example from my family. I have a four and one half year old child, and yesterday he was walking on the street with his mother. Some children he didn’t know came up to him and my child pushed a child who touched him. He doesn’t know him at all. Afterwards, my wife told me about this, and I began to talk to him. I made a comparison with chess players. I tried to put him emotionally into the state in which the child he pushed was and I thought that he really felt this reality, this condition, and he felt that it’s not a good feeling. But, on the other hand, tomorrow when he will be on the street again, this urge to do something awakens in him and consumes him.
M. Laitman: True. First of all, he perceives this from society, and besides that it comes from within, from the uncorrected ego.
Moderator: And then What?
M. Laitman: Repetition. Time after time, he will repeat himself. The Light works on him when he has even a small desire to act differently. By this he attracts the Light that Reforms him, and by this he changes. It is not that he gains something from its repeating itself. But only when our actions become a bit similar to the spiritual actions, the Light shines upon us and changes us. Then suddenly, he feels he’s no longer capable of doing this and he has to do it differently.
Question: What is the spiritual meaning of the Ten Commandments?
M. Laitman: It’s the ten main Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod and Malchut.
Sefirot are our corrected qualities in which the Light already shines. The ten Sefirot are like the skeleton of the soul. If we correct them in general, overall, by this we have corrected the soul. Meaning, we’ve reached the state we were supposed to reach. All of our reality, this whole world and all of our history is in order to allow us to correct the soul. We are now in that period of time. This means that through all of our incarnations, everything we did throughout history, and with what we have at this point, we now, reach the time for implementing the correction of our souls.
When we come to correcting them, ten main qualities which we have to correct are revealed in us. When we correct them, we reach the degree of Adam. Therefore, they are called Dibrot (sayings), from the Hebrew word, Ledaber (to speak). This raises a man from the degree of the animate to the degree of the speaking. The system of speaking is not simply a system of speech. All one’s body revolves around it. All my thinking comes through this system of speaking. There is a reason that I am called “Medaber (the speaking),” and not the thinking. It’s a subject within itself. We’ll talk about it another time.
The Ten Commandments mean that I discover my soul as composed of these ten forces, qualities, and I correct them at their foundation, and then I reach the final correction of the soul. Therefore, the Ten Commandments include in them all the various sub actions, more internal and complicated ones that all together, in total include all ten qualities that I have to achieve. Each one of them is a very high spiritual degree.
The Ari, The Zohar, Baal HaSulam they scrutinized these matters. We learn it in TES (Talmud Eser Sefirot—The Study of the Ten Sefirot).
For example, the precept to respect your mother and your father. We really have such a spiritual degree of Father and Mother in the world of Atzilut, when we reach the ascent to them and are included in them.
Moderator: To commit adultery, what does it mean?
M. Laitman: In this world, it’s obvious, isn’t it?
In spirituality, there is a matter that if you have not yet sanctified the Kli (vessel), then you cannot connect to this Kli, this desire. And if you have not yet corrected it, you cannot use it. Man, is called “the bestower,” and the woman is the desire that you first of all have to correct. You correct this desire through ownership, by buying this woman for yourself, meaning that you sanctify her, that you make a special connection with her. Then, if this connection already exists, you can fulfill this desire in order to bestow. This means that he then enters into legal relations with her.
And all this is within all my desires. I correct them in this way: I sanctify them, I connect them to the bestowing power, to the screen, and I fulfill them in order to bestow.
Moderator: So, let’s summarize. The ten Sefirot are the general correction of the whole soul, which brings me to the degree of the speaking.
M. Laitman: The (degree of) general speaking by which I resemble the Creator. It’s the summit of correction.
Question: I really want to donate to the dissemination of Kabbalah. Only that I have a major problem regarding the matter and I can’t solve it on my own. How can I disseminate something that I have not reached myself? I have no screen and of course, I am not at the end of correction. So, on that basis, what do I disseminate? I have not yet personally experienced it other than my inner yearning to study Kabbalah.
M. Laitman: I think that in this way we will never correct the world. We always go from a lower degree to a higher degree. We don’t see it, or where we are going, or know what we are doing. We get some advice on how to ascend and what to do and after we do it, then we ascend. Does a child who grows know what he’s doing? We, the grown-ups, bring him games, teach him and give him exercises. By his executing these things, he turns from a small child into a teenager, and then into a grown up. Otherwise, he’ll stay like a baby, like an undeveloped being. There has to be someone, who is older to bring the smaller one everything needed to be successful.
The Kabbalists wrote books for us. They tell us what to do. It is similar to our world. This is what we do with our children. And if we want to evolve, we have their books, and if we don’t want to develop, we put them aside and we stay retarded. This is what happens with humanity.
Moderator: Let’s return to what the Kabbalists told us to do. Baal HaSulam, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag said that only in the dissemination of Kabbalah within the multitude of people will we achieve the final correction, and thus, we have to write books, open places of study, and disseminate them to all nations.
M. Laitman: For me, it’s enough. So, as much as I am capable of doing, I do…
Moderator: Let’s say, I participated in this action, technically and I brought this knowledge, be it a book or a link of the Internet to someone; I was here as a medium. Is it enough?
M. Laitman: It’s enough, because I already adhered to someone great who did this, and I realize it. So, in me, there is already a part of him, and in him there is a part of me; we are tied to one another. Although I performed a small action and it’s nothing compared with what he did, nonetheless, I already have a connection. By this, the Light works on me from His degree.
This is so in all our actions. We always have to understand that in the correct action I operate the Light that Reforms. “I’ve created the evil inclination; I’ve created the Tora has spice, because the Light in it Reforms.” Only the Light can correct us and bring us to the good. Therefore, I’m looking only for these actions that bring me the Light that elevates and corrects me.