Question:

Answer: In order for them not to fantasize about an ideal picture hinging on material prosperity that they wouldn’t be able to secure for themselves, it is better that they proceed from the principle summarized in a Russian saying, “love makes a cottage a castle”: “Let’s build our own beautiful ‘castle.’”

Question: But “love makes a cottage a castle” is a purely psychological notion.

Answer: Of course! Nothing else is necessary. They will see that they can satisfy themselves with a minimum and at the same time be perfectly happy. They won’t keep destroying themselves in this pursuit of phantom abundance and instead will be able to build their happiness immediately. But for that they need to be very smart. To achieve that, it’s necessary to educate people and seriously pursue their upbringing, to pull them up to a very serious level.

Usually, a lot of the couples get to this point, except that it happens at a very old age. A state of mutual understanding, concessions, and permeation into one another emerges between them. They know each other’s weaknesses and habits; they understand that there are things that we cannot change about another person and thus, it isn’t necessary to try to do that; they begin to love each other’s weaknesses. But all this occurs with age, in other words, though the path of suffering because decades pass before it happens (if they pass without ending in divorce first).

We need to educate people about that.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Question:

Answer: Of course it can. This information speaks to the fact that we are all integrally connected and therefore need to receive certain signals from each other, at the very least to interact on the level of “hello.” This is a good example.

Question: I can give another example. We spoke about a rather peculiar interaction between relatives. For some reason, a majority of people attempt to build a friendly relationship with, say, their mother-in-law. Obviously, they don’t succeed in that; they are burdened by these ties, which then turn into resentments. In the integral upbringing courses, can we tell people that they shouldn’t try to be friends with their mother-in-law, that this is a different form of interaction?

Answer: People need to be taught a lot in this respect, in particular about what levels of connection one should have. However, I don’t think that we need to operate the way that psychologists do today. If we enter the level of mutual integration, the well-intentioned, simple attitude of people towards each other will involuntarily build the correct connections, where we don’t shun or show off to each other.

It is precisely these sincere mutual interactions that will place us in our corresponding positions relative to each other, akin to connected cogwheels. There are people with whom my connection is tighter, as well as those who are further away from me. I shouldn’t pretend otherwise and insinuate myself into a tight grip with everyone.

Therefore, if I am bound to my spouse through family ties, it doesn’t mean that I have to be similarly connected with her mother and other relatives since all of this is carried out only through him or her and in no other way. If it wasn’t for my spouse, I would possibly have never even known them. It is necessary for us to show these connections directly, to clarify them.

When we draw people towards mutual integrality, they understand that mutual separation or mutual closeness should originate precisely from our state in the overall system. And that is why there shouldn’t be any offense or resentment here.

I greet my neighbors because the fact that living in the same wing of an apartment building or on the same floor obliges me to do so, while I have no obligation to greet the people who live in a neighboring house or even a neighboring wing.

In other words, it is precisely our compatibility with each other and our closeness that determine to what extent I need to expose this mutual connection, this cohesion with others. Thus, if this is recognized by people, they are not obliged to anything. On the contrary, they will naturally, from within, enter any given contact in accordance with the general system, the overall interconnection between everyone.

I do not see a problem in this and I think that all of this will spring from within a person.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Question:

Answer: This is useful even today. When creating an image of an ideal family, we need to understand our egoistic nature and have a completely objective attitude towards it. If I can objectively open up to my group, to “dissect” myself before it, and in addition, the group could also explain to me from its point of view who I am and otherwise, then by understanding the viewpoints, habits, and motivations of one another, all the things given by nature and instilled in us, then we would attempt to rise above that into a completely new system of mutual relationships.

We wouldn’t try to break each other because we are creating something mutual: that which is comfortable and good for us. And all our negative inner egoistic impulses would conversely automatically transform into unification above them.

We begin to see that if this egoism of ours didn’t exist, then we wouldn’t have been able to enter into contact with each other. But thanks to the fact that we build this common superstructure above it, the egoism is actually our partner, friend, and helper, acting seemingly against us while in reality demonstrating that precisely through resistance to it, by turning it inside-out in our mutual relationships, we create a new family, a new anti-egoistic society.

Egoism plays a crucial role in this society because without it, we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything. It is the very fabric of nature intentionally instilled in us. What differentiates a person from an animal? It is precisely the fact that year after year, generation after generation, egoism grows within man. By using egoism, except in the opposite direction, we create mutuality between us: Instead of repelling us, we come closer; instead of rejection and hatred, there is love. Everything is contained in this.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #6, 12/14/11

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Question:

Answer: The aspirations of men and women who constitute different charges, different natures, must be aimed at creating a dipole between them, that is, the kind of interconnection that could become a building block of the universe.

As the Bible says, together, husband and wife are a single whole or “of the same breed.” They are two people who are opposite to one another and connected together at the same time. Either they are connected in a natural way, or via a special method, for here nature actually shows us the complete opposite data. This is important to keep in mind.

But this isn’t simply the bonding or cementing of a family; rather, it is the cementing of a family for the sake of achieving general harmony. Therefore, it transpires in a completely different manner, in a different sense. This is very important! In this case the couple feel responsibility not only for themselves, but for others as well, for they are part of a greater whole, and by not “connecting” to this greater whole, they trigger from nature a negative reaction proportional to the disturbance they introduce.

Suppose my spouse and I introduce 10 grams’ worth of disturbance into the general system because we are merely a tiny part of it, these 10 grams are then multiplied by the complexity factor of the entire system, thus turning into kilograms or tons. And then it all comes back to us, presses us and forces us to change.

Even the mistakes we make presently and in the future trigger the correct consequence, which is felt by us as undesirable, forced, and unpleasant. But it is precisely the consequences of our mistakes that push us forward.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education,” 12/12/11

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Every course in the system of integral upbringing carries a tremendous load of meaning in changing each of us as a personality and as an integral individual within society.

I think that all of these courses should be led by a psychologist, with many examples from our life: What was and what ought to be, how to build a bridge for transitioning from our past states (domestic, spousal, pertaining to housekeeping and children’s upbringing) towards new ones.

Children’s upbringing and the influence of parents on their children are considered separately. We do not tear the family apart, don’t exert any pressure on the parents, and don’t distance them from their children like it was done during the Soviet times when children were sent to boarding schools, or in the Israeli kibbutzim when they were simply taken from their parents and raised separately. Generally speaking, they pursued good goals, but everything came down to exerting force on an individual. It should not be this way.

Under no circumstances do we destroy a family. We simply teach people the correct inclusion into one another. They must merge together internally, connect in such a way that a family becomes a pillar of the integral society and embodies one unit, a single small system that would join together with other such systems.

Comment: How can this be done? How can they be joined?

Answer: If both parents and children complete essentially the same courses, except each according to his age and mentality, then there is no problem in them starting to change involuntarily and discussing these changes in their family circle. Shame and reproaches have no place here because the whole society is obliged to change.

Now we all have to play this game specifically in order to position ourselves under the kind influence of nature. Otherwise nature will force us to do this with its subsequent development showing our contradiction to it, and we will experience that as tremendous suffering.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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Question

Answer: I don’t know whether you can do this and decide this for yourself.

The problem is that we first need to prepare spouses, regardless of their habitual connection with each other, to ensure that they are able to exit that connection. We need to treat them like children, and to make sure that these grownup children are not dependent on their habits.

Let’s say you come to a group. You don’t go there together with your wife. At first you both need to be prepared separately, to make a grown man out of you, and of her a grown woman. You must master the integral skills, understand the system of mutual connection: within a society, in a family, the connection with children, both theoretically and in practice, enacting this with other people.

Only after that should people do the real practical work, that is—with their own spouses, only after they have already accumulated some negative and positive potential. Rising above this isn’t that simple because spouses grow habituated towards some elements of each other’s behavior or they have long-established reactions to certain actions of the other.

We have to rise above all this gradually. That is why we first need to bring a person out of his previous state, present him with a new system of mutual relationships, and after that gradually bring him inside this new system.

But we do not disconnect a person from his family. That is, while the spouses continue to function normally as husband and wife within the family, at the same time, we need to be elevating each of them above their selves, but without touching upon their personal relationship.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

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“The latest data show that unwed adults now almost outnumber those who are wed. Within a few years, the majority of adults over 18 will be single.

“The median age for marriage is now at its highest level as more young people put off tying the knot or cohabiting instead. And last year, only 9 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds were married, a big drop from 45 percent a half century ago.

“Surprisingly, the research doesn’t show that the Great Recession is the cause. Rather, a values revolution is driving many people away from making that special self-sacrifice to a spouse and from cherishing marriage as a social good with economic security that can leave behind a better generation. [emphasis mine]

“Children of divorce are often afraid to tie the knot. Others put careers and education first. And with less social obligation to marry these days, finding Mr. or Ms. Right seems less urgent.

“These trends are worse among the less educated, blacks, and Hispanics. For them, this ‘marriage gap’ causes many to lose out on the economic benefits of marriage. College-educated whites, meanwhile, still largely embrace marriage, allowing most to hang onto the American dream.

“Marriage, of course, isn’t for everybody. But its decline signals a troublesome shift away from the enduring spiritual values of self-denial for the sake of others, best expressed in marriage and, with it, parenthood.

“It is not only individuals who lose the opportunity to learn the happiness of finding one’s good in another, but society loses out as well.” [emphasis mine]
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Question:

I listen both to you and the other teacher. How do I and others who might be in the same situation (inner struggle) deal with this? Whom do I truly believe? Which one should I choose? Both, so to speak, “speak to me,” although perhaps on different “levels.” Would you be ever so kind to possibly help me and others that might be living in this reality?

Answer: One should learn where his heart desires. Therefore, I advise you to listen to yourself, but namely to yourself. A teacher is he who uses the primary sources to teach you how to master the property (intention) of love and bestowal.

Question: I’m a student of Kabbalah for maybe four years, and you are my teacher from the beginning. I want to marry a girl whom I knew before I found the wisdom, and she is a Sufi with a Sufi spiritual teacher.

The problem is that from the beginning we had these differences: I was a Salafi Muslim and she is a Sufi Muslim. Our faiths, cultures, and our way of thinking are different. But what kept me with her is her altruistic attitude to people.

At first I wanted to leave her, but then I started working on the differences between us and realized how much pain is caused by my ego. And now I don’t know what to do: Marrying her is like slaughtering my ego, but what will it give me? Can you please help me sort out my thoughts?

Answer: I would nevertheless ask my teacher!
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In the News (from the Daily Mail):

“In their report, the researchers claimed the results proved that opposites do not attract at all – and that like is drawn towards like.

They said: ‘Individuals on the dating market will assess their own self-worth and select partners whose social desirability approximately equals their own.’”

My comment: The main law of creation is the “law of equivalence of form,” according to which those who are similar in properties attract each other to the extent of their equivalence, until they merge in their complete similarity. This is a law, hence it is in effect both in our and in the upper worlds.
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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Mishpatim (Ordinances),” Item 343: He [King Solomon] signed his chair with a seal engraved with the holy Name, took a ring on which the holy Name was engraved, went on an ascent, riding that eagle, and went away.

Question: What is this ring?

Answer: This is a special force protecting Malchut, which restricts itself in order to use the Light of Hochma only from above downwards, above the will to enjoy, meaning in the intention to bestow rather than to receive into itself, into its egoistic desire. This is called a “ring.”

This is the origin of the wedding ritual where people put rings on each other, symbolizing their bestowal to one another and their connection.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/11, The Zohar

]]> http://www.laitman.com/2011/05/the-magic-ring/feed/ 2 http://www.laitman.com/2011/04/a-love-triangle-the-husband-the-wife-and-the-mother-in-law/ http://www.laitman.com/2011/04/a-love-triangle-the-husband-the-wife-and-the-mother-in-law/#comments Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:45:54 +0000 admin_bb http://www.laitman.com/?p=20261 Question: Why does a woman always have disagreements with her mother-in-law?

Answer: Both of these women have a big desire to have power over the same man. It is known from the Torah that in the past everything was the opposite way. Before his marriage, a man would bring his bride-to-be to his parent’s house, to his mother, where she would “simmer” in his familiar environment. This way, the woman understood the personality of her future husband and received all the information about him from his mother in order to connect to him correctly.

A man does exist between two women, his mother and his wife (the upper, Bina, and the lower, Malchut). This is why a man naturally tends to treat his wife as a mother to some extent, and often times he sees his mother in his wife.

All of these really descend to our world from the spiritual world. Therefore, women should forgive their husbands for this.
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From the Introductory Lecture Series 3/8/2011, "Reaching a Balance"

Question:

Answer: I think that everyone, within the parameters of the corporeal world, can do as their inclination dictates. And all their inner forces should be directed toward reaching an exalted, eternal, perfect goal.
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]]> http://www.laitman.com/2011/04/aspire-to-an-exalted-goal/feed/ 0 http://www.laitman.com/2011/03/the-place-where-the-creator-doesn%e2%80%99t-dwell/ http://www.laitman.com/2011/03/the-place-where-the-creator-doesn%e2%80%99t-dwell/#comments Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:12:05 +0000 bb_admin http://www.laitman.com/?p=19380 Question: In one of your lectures you said that a person must add the Creator to his list of friends. What does that mean in our spiritual work?

Answer: If you ask psychologists, they can tell you about what happens to a young couple who has recently gotten married. When they start living together, after the honeymoon period is over, there comes a period of mutual complaints, dissatisfaction, tension, and conflicts, and now they have to work really hard in order to continue living together.

These periods can be long or short, and this depends entirely on the example they saw in their parent’s home. At this time, a young couple needs advice from psychologists or parents to help them connect on the basis of mutual respect and compromise, instead of love.

They have to learn how to avoid pressing each other’s buttons, which cause the conflicts between them while they remain inside theirs egos and are egoistically attached to their partner. This is what happens in our daily life. However, this approach doesn’t work in our spiritual development.

While advancing in spirituality, a person does have to look for these points of tension and make them visible instead of concealing them because “the Torah will come out” precisely from these points. If a person views them correctly, wishing to discern and utilize them in order to reform himself, then instead of demanding something else, he strives to attain his own inner evil.

This is possible only when a person walks along with the Creator, as if holding onto His hand, as it is written, “Come unto Pharaoh with me!” One has to discern this Pharaoh, this evil within, and then tame and reform it, unify with it, and flee from it. But while working with the evil, a person must always be bound to the goal and use the Creator’s force.

All conflicts, arguments, and tensions can be revealed between the friends in the group only on the condition that they strive for unity, if they make efforts to come together. Only then will they see that they hate one another and don’t have any desire to be one. Therefore, they must bring the Creator into it so He may reform this hate. After all, it is the Creator who shows man where his evil resides. This is the place where He doesn’t dwell, the place without Light.
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From the lesson on 2/25/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question:

Answer: This is a very powerful and important action from the women’s end. They can motivate the men to advance spiritually, to unite, to study, and to disseminate.

In the same way, in the spiritual world, Zeir Anpin starts moving and acting only when Malchut, the female part, motivates him to do so by raising MAN to him and demanding correction.

A man will not awaken without a woman and her desire—both at home and in the group. Therefore, the female part has to wake up and awaken the male part because otherwise the men won’t attain the goal.

We turn to all the women of the world Kli, asking them to unite together and put pressure on the men in different ways. Then the men will feel that they have to advance and that they cannot calm down.
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From the talk on women on 3/8/11

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Question:

Answer: Unfortunately, none of us received the necessary upbringing and we weren’t prepared for family life. We have to raise a man and a woman in a way that teaches them to establish the right interconnection with one another and with their children.

This is the problem of egoistic development: Each person thinks that he knows what to do. No one prepares a person for life. Instead of educating a person, we barely teach him some kind of profession. That is why the modern crisis is so deep.

The crisis of families has become unbearable. The whole world is being immersed in universal, total despair from the attempts of families to live together. And while this is happening we do not admit that the family unit is the foundation of all of life. Without it, life will not go on.

Man will have to search for the answer, and the answer is: “Husband and wife, and the Shechina between them.” We have to understand that egoistic development has brought us to a dead-end: We cannot stand each other anymore. Only the importance of the goal can help us, and we can attain that goal only if we have the corrected family which gives their children the right upbringing. Only on this condition do we acquire similarity to nature or the Creator. Then we reveal Him, unite with Him, and attain eternal life on the spiritual level.

Only the spiritual goal will obligate a person to create the right family, to have children and the right relationships between the spouses.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/11 on Women

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Question:

Answer: It is written, “Husband and wife, and the Shechina between them.” If we live for the sake of spiritual attainment, if we initially place this at the foundation of our connection, if this is our goal at every stage, if we both understand that this is exactly why we exist in the world, that this is the “pinnacle” of the family, that this is the reason why we give birth to children and work, if we feel that the thread connecting us with one another and with our children passes through the Creator, if we want Him to reign between us so the whole family would feel His presence, then this approach corrects all of our relationships. Then we have a successful family.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11 on Women

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Question:

Answer: Out of having no other way to go, women are forced to solve the problems of life in order to provide themselves with what men do not give them. That is why they are forced to go through the education system and work hard while at the same time taking care of the home and raising children without a husband. As a result, today they are rising higher and higher on the career ladder, occupying newer and newer positions.

All of it is happening because men are running away from responsibility, from the part they have to take upon themselves. Women are accepting modernity’s challenge, but men are not.

Overall, the modern environment conditions us to be free, telling us, “Live however you want, no one can say anything to you.” People do not feel responsibility toward society, their country, their people, or the world. Do anything that comes into your head as long as you don’t kill, steal, or other such things.

However, this is opposite to what Baal HaSulam explains to us: According to the spiritual root, each of us is indebted to society. The calculation is not only with what a person takes, but also how much he fails to give. Each person has to work and contribute his share to society. Each person has to take on the burden of a family, raise children, and so on.

However, in our society it is not considered a transgression if a person does not contribute his share. A transgression is if he took more than what is accepted. In this situation we will continue to suffer until humanity finds itself “at the brink of death,” so to say. And maybe that will help.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11 on Women

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Writings of Rabash, Article 535 “On Partnership”: The husband works and brings home money, while the wife takes the money and her work lies in going to buy the food and preparing it, making sure that the meal will be tasty. Then they are both happy and satisfied. If the wife cooks tasty food, then the husband has an appetite and then he has the strength to go to work and bring home money.

Analogously, if the feet go out into the street and the hands buy food and give nutritional substances to the brain, then the brain has the energy to think.

This is how nature itself has arranged things, although in our times many things happen differently. In the end we have to become similar to nature. No matter how much we try to run away from it, we will have to come back. Obviously, we won’t be returning to primitive life in the caves, and besides, today there wouldn’t be enough caves to go around.

The essence of the matter is that every gender has to be provided with the appropriate field of activity for which it is intended, both in the spiritual sense and in its material projection. Everything comes from the spiritual world, and therefore, we have to study its laws in order to then turn to the material world according to them. In spirituality there are two Partzufim: male and female. The female part is the carrier of the desire, the “home,” and the “vessel” that has to be ordered the right way. But doing that requires the force that the male part brings.

Where should this force reside? What does it have to incarnate into? How should it be expressed? The answer is: in the female quality. The revelation of the male quality in the female one is the home, the children, and everything connected to the family.
Therefore, if we divide the male and female functions even in every individual, and if we skillfully arrange all the things in their right places, then we gain time and speed of development, reducing troubles and aspiring to the goal by the good path.

It’s worthwhile for us to learn from nature. After all, we can’t escape it. We are just small parts of the great whole. If we will know this and keep it in mind without trying to jump over our heads, if we act precisely according to nature, then we will reach the perfect state.

In this regard we have to understand that our incorrect functioning is a result of egoism. We are deliberately confused in order to have the opportunity to search for the right form of our activity in life without putting on airs as if we have risen above nature. Otherwise we are in nature’s power and in addition are also proud of being slaves to egoism.

Our work is, first and foremost, to make an analysis: Who are we and what are we, where are we located, where are we going, what controls and motivates us, and what do we have to reach? Once we discern all of these foundations, we can then establish the right order of controlling ourselves, both from above and from our own end. Then we will reach similarity to the upper image. We have to use precisely that image to learn how to build our lives here, below.

The matter here is not the fashion or the customs of the times. Nature has its own laws and it really is worthwhile for us to follow them.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11 on Women

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Today we are in a transitional

On the spiritual path a woman has to set the desire, exert pressure on the man, and obligate him to advance. Similarly, in our world a wife pressures a husband to work and bring home earnings. And when there is a home and the means to exist, then we can give birth to children and raise them.

That’s how it works in spirituality as well: If we work on the correction of the soul together, then we give birth to new souls, new corrections. It is written about this, “Husband and wife, and the Shechina between them.” The revelation of the Creator occurs precisely between us, when we are together.

Both men and women have to contribute their share to these actions. No one is greater or smaller here. It is impossible to give birth without a woman. A new soul, a new spiritual Partzuf can only be raised by the force of the female desire.

In the process of correction no one acquires greater significance. No one is smaller or greater. Wherever something weighs less, something else counterbalances it according to the reverse order of the Lights and Kelim. Without a female desire a man is powerless, and a female desire without a male screen is also powerless.

Nevertheless, who is primary? It is the woman. That’s because the desire to ask for correction always comes from the woman. It’s the same in our world: Even though men think they succeed by their own abilities, in reality all of their activities happen only for the sake of women, only in order to acquire significance in the eyes of women. That is how we are built.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/11 on Women

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Question:

Answer: No, you will not be able to create a good life for yourself in this world with the help of the science of Kabbalah. A good life will come as a result of your using all of the evil that becomes revealed in order to attain love for the neighbor and love for the Creator. Then the desires in which you feel bad will no longer emerge in you. The science of Kabbalah does not lie to a person! This is not psychology or charlatanism; it is not mysticism or a magical means to improve our lives!

Kabbalah says that the evil which becomes revealed to you is goal-oriented. It is intended to push you toward correction. You do not have to nullify the desire in which you feel bad, but rather, you have to admit that the desire is bad because of your hatred to the neighbor, and when you correct your hatred to love, you will be able to enjoy love for the neighbor and then the bad desires will no longer become revealed in you.

If you want to create a family or you are already married and a disagreement, animosity, or a misunderstanding comes up between you, that misunderstanding is impossible to correct without correcting your attitude to creation and the Creator. The Creator is between you: “Husband and wife—and the Shechina between them.”

For now the Shechina is still in exile. It becomes revealed as an evil, harmful force, the force of mutual hatred which sets you one against the other. The Creator does this deliberately so you wouldn’t connect on the previous, animate level, the way a female animal unites with a male animal in order to produce offspring, but in order for you to merge with one another as two souls into one soul and reveal the common force of bestowal that will connect you together.

If you are able to correct the relationship between you in this way, you will really become a family. Otherwise you won’t be able to do it. Kabbalah does not give you hints, solutions, or medicine for your current state, but elevates you to a new state where you will be able to be happy, successful, and perfect.

All of the suffering, problems, and blows become revealed in our world not in order to bring peace and perfection into the world, but in order to elevate us above our world. Otherwise it is similar to building communism in Russia. If you do something not for the sake of the Creator, meaning not in order to reach absolute bestowal, then you won’t achieve anything.

I feel bad, I have problems with my family, at work, with my children, and with my health, and I want to succeed in all of these areas. Kabbalah says I will feel good? Then fine, I agree to study Kabbalah! To do that I have to bestow to others? Then I’m even willing to bestow to others—anything to feel good myself.

This is called Lo Lishma (not for the Creator’s sake). This means that you know the method and you want to bring it to life for the sake of everyone so that you would also feel good. Now everything depends on what proportion you are willing to bestow to others in order to improve your state.

At first it is 1% for others and 99% for yourself. Then it’s the opposite: 99% for others and 1% for yourself until you acquire the force enabling you not to want anything for yourself. “I don’t care about what happens to me, I want to bestow to others.” This is called “bestowal for the sake of bestowal.”

However, we will never be able to return to a successful and corrected material life. All the methods that say that they can achieve this are lying, and Kabbalah tells you from the onset that this is impossible because all the evil in this life exists in order to elevate you to a new level.

Therefore, if you apply the science of Kabbalah to improve this life and you begin selling holy water or red strings, then it becomes a deadly poison. We have to understand that the reason for the general state of the world is the need to elevate us, but not to improve our situation. This is the difference between Kabbalah and other methods.

Therefore, if someone promises you a good life in this world, or health and happiness in your personal life, don’t believe it—it’s a lie and goes against nature! Nature wishes to elevate us to the “human” level. And when you aspire to this state, everything falls into place in the most wondrous way!
[34174]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question:

Answer: The question is: What are we willing to sacrifice? We must sacrifice our egoism, hate, and resentment. Concession is like overcoming an obstacle. Only in this case, I overcome my inner qualities, my nature, and yield to my connection with someone else.

Rabash repeatedly said that love is not an animate sensation that arises in us naturally, under the pressure of hormones. Spiritual love is something that we create ourselves since it is doesn’t exist a priori. It is built on the basis of concessions.

A person overcomes himself, receives the attributes of the Creator, and while doing so, he starts realizing who he is going to connect with. This is how love for someone is born within him.

In the degree that a person loves the Creator, he loves the friend since only with the friend’s help can he realize his love for the Creator. It is similar to how love is built on mutual compromise in the family. One shouldn’t get married because he or she “fell in love,” which is not love but deception that will not last.

Yet if two people understand that they should form a union for the sake of an exalted goal, they will concede to each other. This will be part of their spiritual work since they will be tied by the goal, and then they will build love between them.

This will be authentic love that will lead them to love for the Creator. After all, it is the Creator who will obligate them to yield to each other and establish mutual connection of love.
[30312]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/20/10, “Peace in the World”

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Question:

Answer: Yes, there is a difference. If two people can unite so that the Creator is revealed inside their connection, even if it’s just in their imagination for now, then they will arrive at the spiritual attainment faster. The Creator is always present, but the question is whether we take this into consideration or not. If we are able to feel the Creator in our mutual connection, then He becomes revealed. If His revelation might disturb our development and confuse us, then He remains concealed, yet He always governs us from “behind the scenes.”

The Creator is present behind a person’s desires, thoughts, and actions since “there is none else besides Him.” However, I cannot work with Him directly since am unable to resist Him; I would immediately surrender and nullify my freedom and independence. This is why He is concealed. In this case, I see only a person in relation to whom I can act freely.

However, if we can manage to purposefully see the Creator behind each person by using our desire with the correct intention, we will very quickly uncover the true reality. When we do this work with the friends, various calculations and problems arise, but with a spouse, it is possible. If husband and wife decide to see the Creator behind their relationship (as it is written, “Husband and wife and Shechina (the Creator) between them”), then their connection becomes purposeful and exalted. And since it contains various forms and possibilities within itself, the couple advances rapidly.

The root of all problems in marital relationships is the Creator’s absence between husband and wife, although in fact, He is always secretly present there.
[26067]
From the "Weekly Torah Portion" on 10/29/10

Question:

Answer: Try to make all the interactions between you happen only in order to reveal the Creator between you. This guarantees you absolute peace at home and is useful for every person even out of purely egoistic interests.

This is a very effective means and it correctly orients a person toward his entire life. The group and the friends are still an artificial structure for him, all of humanity is perceived even farther away, and the universe is felt as completely distant. One’s wife is the closest thing to him, as it is written, "A person’s wife is like his body."

On the other hand, you suddenly reveal that you have a partner in every regard! The Creator lets you start to feel that against every movement you make, she also makes a movement. No matter what movement takes place – in the mind, the heart, or a physical one, a synchronous movement takes place against it. It’s as if the Creator glues together two separate parts in all the details and forms as He becomes revealed.

All we have to do is try to reveal the Creator between us, the force that unites us and that we want to attain as a result of living together. Otherwise this entire life will be a mere animalistic existence.

Together the two of us desire to reveal the force of unity between us – the third component which completes us so we will become as one! When He unites us into one whole, we will include Him inside us and will be one whole precisely because He is inside us and fulfills us.

This is called "Husband, wife, and the Creator between them." He is present in everything that exists between them. There is nothing other than that because the desire of each person is aimed at the other. It’s like the relationship between Zeir Anpin and Malchut: He is entirely aimed toward her, and she toward him.

The Creator set apart all the particular Sefirot of Malchut and made Hava (Eve) out of them. That is why there is a precise correspondence between Zeir Anpin and Malchut along the entire height of a spiritual Partzuf; they are on one level, one against the other in eternal, unceasing union.

Neither has any qualities that are not present in the other. However, the only way to attach them to one another is by the Light of AB SAG, which comes and connects them by correcting one of them toward greater bestowal and the other toward greater reception. In order to unite, they both ascend into Bina, which is called Elokim, the Creator, and He gives them the force of unity and then fulfills them.

They don’t fulfill each other, but their shared desires. That is how a "child" is born, being a result of the union. It is the following spiritual Partzuf, a new state, described by the verse, "The father (Aba) gives the white, the mother (Ima) gives the red, and the Creator gives the soul." The Creator is between them, and by fulfilling them He gives a soul to the new level.
[22122]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question:

Answer: Nothing does! Suppose I fell in love with a girl. A month later I don’t want her anymore. What should I do? People tell me, “You have to stay with her for life.” But why should I? It would be a lie, not the desire of my heart. If I hate her now, how will I be able to live all my life with her? How, then, do we commit to marriage? We realize that we won’t be able to live with the same feeling of infatuation forever and it will be a lie.

Marriage has an Upper Root: the union of the Creator and the created being, founded on attainment of the Higher Goal, not corporeal love. Love is defined as mutual support and assistance toward achieving this goal.

If I understand this principle, I can rise above my desire to receive pleasure and walk my path of life by way of bestowal. I don’t sign a promise saying that I will love bestowal all my life; this is impossible and therefore we can’t even talk about that. Rather, I sign the promise saying that I will always treat the Creator as Great, and I wish to attain Him by way of making a covenant with Him. That is why it is written: “Husband and wife, and the Creator between them.” Otherwise, there won’t be a marriage.

It is the Host who matters to me, not His table full of delicious treats that stands between us. The “treats” serve as the first contact between us, until I am able to build a higher connection with the Host in order to attain that higher connection. In other words, the covenant we make with the Host does not happen at the level of love between us, or because He provides “treats” for me, as in the case with a young man and a young woman who marry because of the animate love between them. On the contrary, we value each other because the connection between us allows us to reach the Upper Root, the exalted spiritual goal.

Now, a question arises: How can one remain focused on this exalted goal? That is why we need the group. It is the place where you have a guarantee, and it can give you the force of faith which will always serve as your “fuel.” You can’t achieve this on your own. Even the Creator won’t hold you up if you don’t make the effort.
[21431]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/17/10, “A Transgression Does Not Put Out A Mitzva”

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The only thing that can help a family stay together is a strong society that keeps both spouses together and directs them toward spiritual growth.

We have already received enough blows from Nature to make us understand that it is essential for us to achieve balance. We have to establish good relationships between all of us. Only this will revive harmony and normalize Nature so that heat, cold, magnetic fields, and a thousand other parameters will come into balance. This world will feel like paradise, even on the material level. To feel this way, it is extremely important to achieve equilibrium. We have to observe a very simple condition where everything stays in mutual connection on all levels (inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human).

One of the prerequisites to achieving equilibrium is the establishment of the right types of connections within a family. Kabbalists rejected unmarried men as their disciples because a man without a wife is only “half a body.” It’s impossible to correct “half a body.” Previously, this requirement was very strict. Nowadays, everything is simplified. Everybody is permitted to study since we are undergoing a transition period and cannot obligate people to marry; it’s beyond our power. However, I hope the time will come soon when the next generation will realize that we have to observe material order and have a family in order to achieve balance with Nature.

Only by aspiring toward one spiritual goal can we preserve a family. Our egoism has grown so much that the usual material connections with children, family, and household cannot connect people to each other any longer. Everybody has a job, can afford a place to live, and be completely independent. A person feels relatively self-sufficient and doesn’t need his wife’s or children’s support. It is different from the past when no one could survive without a family. Now a person has the supermarket, modern-day household appliances, and health insurance.

Therefore, only a higher goal can elevate a person above the animate level and bring him to a “human” level (“Adam” is a derivative of the word “similar”). It is the only thing that makes a person similar to the Creator, reveals eternity, and raises us above life and death. It is the only thing that can ensure internal spiritual connection in a family. However, it is not accessible for everybody yet.

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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/10, A Lesson On Current Events