Description

Memoirs of Rav Michael Laitman, PhD on a personal experience with his teacher, Rabash (Rabbi Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag).

Transcript

From time to time, Kabbalists leave their permanent settings. They leave their families, their children, their wife, disciples, the seminaries, the place where they study and where they live—and they go to a completely different place. I used to go with my Rabbi for a few hours a day, and also occasionally for a couple of days out of the week to the city of Tiberius, Mount Meron, up north, where we could be completely alone.
 
Getting away like that is a necessary thing for a man who wants to feel how to depart from the influence of society, even from the influence of his close environment. He feels that he must be by himself, he and the Higher Power, in a secluded place, absent from all alien thoughts, absent from all influence. Where people aren’t coming to see you, and you’re alone for long periods of time, engaged in writing and reading special texts. You get into them and connect through them to the Upper Forces, to the Creator, to the universal Higher Power. And this enables you to remain there, and not be cut-off by external disturbances.

The first time we went I felt it in a very powerful way. I had already been connected to my teacher for about a year, a year and a half, when one day he just took off all of a sudden, and he went to Tiberius all by himself. That was before we had started going up there together. So, I happened to visit him, while he was in that state there.

I remember going up to the apartment where we later used to spend time together, for many years. I went up to his apartment and I knocked on the door. He opened the door for me, and I could not see that this man was actually looking at me. He didn’t see me.

A few minutes later he was able to refocus on me, and he looked at me, and then he abruptly said: “Who told you to come to me?” He blurted out spontaneously: “What’d you come here for? What are you doing here?” He said it in such a manner that I felt myself alienated from him, as if I didn’t belong to him. He was in such a high level of existence that he didn’t even know me. Even though I was so close to him, I was his disciple and his aide.

After two years passed from the time of that encounter in Tiberius, he said to me: “Let’s start going there together.” And then, then I was absolutely able to feel that he was taking me with him.

In Tiberius we studied mostly from Beit Sha'ar ha Kavanot and Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), part 16, which explains about the structure of Adam ha Rishon (the First Man) and the structure of his soul; how his soul divides into parts, and which parts. How these parts go on dividing all the way down until they reach the souls of humans, who are already in existence at a lower level called, "this world." And then this soul, from within, begins to feel that it exists not only in the spiritual world, but that there is a physical reality before it. So what is the physical reality in actuality? It is the soul’s perception that there is an additional reality, as a result of its descent to the abyss, to the lowest state of its desires.

The studies were extremely profound and very emotional: parts of The Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot and some other Kabbalists’ writings, which I’m not yet permitted to discuss. There’s this thing called Megilat Starim (The Secret Scroll) that was written by Kabbalists in private, it was only for themselves or for those who had an understanding. He used to take these texts and explain them to me, reading all sorts of letters and articles that where incomprehensible, were it not for his clarifications.

Nowadays, there’s regret. Naturally, I’d be able to absorb more from him if he was still with us today. Today, people are coming to realize that there is no way that we can achieve anything in our lifetime here in this world.

Fatigue, drugs, a global crisis has hit the world and it’s made people lose interest in what’s happening, lose interest in any of the illusions that they used to have, and they just don't expect anything good from technological progress. That is why today, the writings of Baal HaSulam have come back to life. And making him known to the public is our goal, it’s our mission and it’s our duty.