The Protagonist

Question from a Student: Every film has a protagonist. Who is the protagonist in the film of life?

Dr. Laitman's Answer:  Every regular person that lives this film is the protagonist. Only he doesn't sense that he's an actor; he's convinced that his life is for real!

That is why our life is like a dream. When I have a vivid dream, filled with strong emotions like joy and fear and so on, I wake up still under the dream's impression, whether good or bad.

In the same way we will ultimately wake up in Gmar Tikkun, and realize that this life was merely a movie.

Actually, we will realize this even earlier when The Zohar illuminates for us our actual state. But for as long as I exist in this film, and sense myself as part of it, I cannot disconnect from it and view myself from the side.

When the Light makes even the minimal correction in me, and I attach some part of an external desire to my internal one, I begin to see this dream for what it is, and the delusion I've lived prior to this discovery.

I am deluded not only with respect to the surrounding world, but also with respect to myself. There are so many layers of falsehood in me, but I don't know myself at all....

In a dream I may see myself as a hero-charging somewhere on a horse, flying to the moon-but that's only a movie. And then I wake up in my bed.

However, as I attach to myself the external Kli and make it internal, by loving my friend as myself, in this connection I reveal the Upper Light; and so I wake from this dream and begin to live in the world of truth.

Indeed, my desires can only be united if I attain bestowal in them, seeing as I attach to myself an external part, which I hate.

Then I begin to care about this external desire more than even myself, and I'm prepared to give my friend everything I have!

I correct the illusion that is my egoistic desire. The Creator gave me this split reality only so that I could attain Him.

While in reality, all my Kelim are on the outside. Indeed, I must change my attitude to myself. Instead of loving myself as I do now, I must come outside of myself, and those who are presently outside I must bring inside. That is how I correct all of my Kelim.

But then what will I sense in them? I will sense the Creator, the Upper Force that acts within me, the intention to bestow with which I join as one!

There’s No Fatigue, Only A Lack Of Desire

Sometimes people come to the lesson with a kind of fatigue. But this is not fatigue.

As Rabash said: If someone were to tell you that your house was on fire, you would jump up and run. Therefore, this is not fatigue, only a lack of desire.

People feel that they don't understand; don't feel the material, that everything is as though in a fog. All those things are also symptoms of the desire's dullness.

"I'm actually not really interested; I don't feel well; I have more pressing matters to deal with; I need a rest; tomorrow I've got a big day at work." All those things are nothing but a lack of desire.

I am deliberately given the opportunity to find this desire, to want to obtain it, to realize that I must find it myself.

And, again, finding the desire is only possible by opening the book, even when I don't want to read or understand, when I don't see or feel anything in it.

However, gradually, by forcing myself to read a little more, and a little more, and a little more-letter after letter, word after word, I search and I wait to be overtaken by the desire spoken of by The Book of Zohar.

I understand all these steps, tasteless as they are, without feeling or understanding.

On the contrary, it is precisely in this lack of taste, sensation, and awakening that I begin to feel the Creator's attitude toward me, that He still gives me the opportunity and a precise place to apply my own effort in all of these states.

This is the mutual work between me and the Upper. In this work I begin to connect to the Creator even in the states when I don't feel Him as "good that does good" and "there is none else beside Him."

In this manner I come to the correct desires. The fulfillment, the Upper Light, is in absolute rest. All that's missing are the desires, the Kelim (vessels).