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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.18.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Lesson: Talk About Past Conventions 

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The Book of Zohar –  Selected Excerpts, “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Separating and Connecting Firmament,” Item 365

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Preface to the Book of Zohar, Item 33, Lesson 19

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The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.17.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Lesson: Talk  About Past Conventions 

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The Book of Zohaar – Selected Excerpts, Beresheet (Genesis),” “If My Convenant Is Not Day or Night,” Item 359

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 7, Item 2

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.16.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Lesson: Talk About Past Conventions 

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Hidden Light,” Item 354

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 7, ”Seder Siba U-Mesuvav,” Item 1

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Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” (Starting with: “Of course, from that moment”)

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.15.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash “Igrot,” Letter 18

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Chapters, ”Beresheet (Genesis),”Bet Resheet,” (Starting with: “‘To water,’ means”), Item 342

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 7

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Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 133, Lesson 59

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A Very Special Mission For Our Generation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What exactly is our work in unity?

Answer: I have to yearn for a connection with the text that we study, to want that everything it says to be fulfilled in my connection with the general vessel, with the whole desire. I want to discover all the phenomena The Zohar talks about in my connection with the group.

The Zohar talks about the still, vegetative, and animate levels of the desire, nothing more. So there, it speaks about the sages, land, trees, animals, and donkeys—everything applies to the four phases of desire. We shouldn’t be distracted from this internal meaning and imagine an external picture.

Even if it “diverts” us, we have to hold on to the internality as hard as we can, and we always keep this struggle inside us with mixed success. The main thing is to try, which means that you are performing corrections and raising the internality over the externality, raising it higher and higher.

These are the greatest corrections, which only we can perform as the lowest level of the system. Until now no one could do that, not even the great Kabbalists of the past. We, in our generation, perform this most important work by raising the internality over the externality at the base of the system.
[76319]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/12, The Zohar

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The World Of Ein Sof (Infinity) In A Child’s Perception

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen a person begins to stabilize himself with regard to the Creator, he sees that all the reality that he feels is inside him, including the group and all of humanity. All of creation, everything, takes place in his desire to receive. Except for this desire there is only the Creator.

While reading The Zohar, we discover different states that exist in our desire to receive that are more bestowal oriented and are aimed at the Creator.

First, our desires are totally separated and dispersed: all the inanimate, the vegetative, the animate and the human levels of nature. This is how a person perceives reality. But gradually we begin to see that the system is more organized, more integral, and closed. We even feel that it pressures us and that it is totally in mutual connections.

So there are two processes here, one approaching the other. A person discovers and realizes more as he develops. On the other hand, the system itself seems to be more stabilized externally, to be connected with all its parts, and to pressure us so that we will begins to perceive it as unified and closed. This means that at the same time there is both an “awakening from below” and an “awakening from Above.”

There are two ways we can develop, by the “way of the Torah” or “by suffering.” By the Torah, we advance as we hasten ourselves, trying to discover the system as more round and mutually connected, and by that we can understand the upper force, the Upper Providence.

But the system shows us that it is one organic and connected body that pressures us by these connections, making our life more difficult. We have to try to perceive reality only as one system, no matter what, through which the upper force wants to be revealed to us. The Creator is waiting to dress Himself in this system and to fill it according to the equivalence of form.

The Zohar describes very high and advanced states, but when we read about them, we lower them to our level, just like children with their naïve perception of the world. A smart grown-up understands the internal connection between things, what stems from what, and how everything is arranged, while a child looks at the same thing and sees the world differently, by perceiving only a narrow part of reality.

The Zohar too, reveals all of reality to us, but we perceive only a very small part of it. But each time when we try to stabilize our internal world according to what The Zohar tells us, by our efforts and our attempts to discern where all the attributes that are described by The Zohar (the “inanimate,” “vegetative,” “animate” and “speaking) are inside us, we advance.
[76400]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/12, The Zohar

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The Music Of The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we picture to ourselves an ideal state: a general vessel (desire), connection?

Answer: We are all interconnected. When the very first connection is revealed between us, it means that all of us, no matter how many of us there are—billions or millions, reveal 10 Sefirot between ourselves. Such is the structure of the system.

And then, these 10 Sefirot begin to vibrate and generate sounds, as if strings of a guitar. They are in constant movement, in harmonious relationships with one another. Not a single sound is out of tune from the general harmony.

This entire system reveals to us more and more perfect 10 Sefirot. Besides, they become increasingly clearer to us in their various kinds. These various forms that become revealed to us appear because each individual Sefira consists of its own 10 Sefirot.

And when all these inner 10 Sefirot that comprise the 10 main Sefirot also start interacting between themselves, generating the upper harmonies of the main waves, as if in music or voice, they create the entire impression, transmitting inside all information about the vessels and the Light that fulfills them.

Different Lights are essentially impressions inside all these desires, experienced from the connection of singing strings, from the emerging chords. All this music is what revelation is.

Everything is inside the vessel. The sound is felt inside our desires, organs of perception, it doesn’t exist by itself in the air. The music of the Light is always revealed as the inner filling of the letters (the matrixes of desires), existing inside other letters. The Light manifests only inside the vessel, or desire, as a result of its changes.
[76322]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/2012, The Zohar 

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How To Put An End To War?

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday there are no wars of survival wars, and no wars of independence, no wars against attackers, but rather wars directed at bestowal. This is exactly how we should see the current state.

In the past, Abraham’s group broke off from the part of humanity that was concentrated in Babel and since then all our existence is meant only to correct ourselves by going through shattering and destruction, exiles and holocausts. This is the essence of the many bitter corrections, as a result of which we are back at the land of Israel today.

Not all the nations understand this return, and among those who have accepted it, not all of them treat the state and the army in the same way. These of course are childhood diseases, which we have to go through during the stages of our development. In the paper Ha’uma (The Nation) and in other places, Baal HaSulam says that we are not a nation yet in the true sense.

Here is an excerpt from his article “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“:

It follows that our generation is the generation of the days of the Messiah. This is why we have been granted the redemption of our holy land from the hands of the foreigners. We have also been rewarded with the revelation of The Book of Zohar.

Yet, with those two, we have only been rewarded with this gift from the Creator, but we have not received anything into our own hands. Instead, we have been given a chance to begin with the work of God, to engage in Torah and Mitzvot Lishma. Then we will be granted the great success that is promised to the generation of the Messiah, which all the generations before us did not know.

In this light, we must see the same path the past generations made. This process is essential despite the many disasters it involved, and at the end of which we were finally given a chance to return to the land of Israel in order to rebuild a state and a nation here. Today it is in our hands: There are all the necessary conditions, and from now on we have to pave the road to the correction of the world. Only when we are prepared for that, will the troubles and the problems that are aimed at us come to an end.

Today everyone who aims at and yearns for spirituality, for the revelation of the spiritual Providence of the upper force, belongs to the group called “the nation of Israel.” These people aim at Yashar – El (Straight for the Creator), and today they have to take on the form of bestowal. Then the pressure on Israel will stop and we will be able to take care of the whole world correctly. This is our mission.

As for now, we don’t see the whole picture, our role, the goal, and the process which we have to implement on the way to reaching the goal, we don’t understand why disasters fall upon us systematically even today, and when the afflictions and wars will come to an end. We cannot stop them, but we can correct ourselves, and then they will come to an end. It is simply impractical and futile to count on the fact that we will be rid of them if we don’t correct ourselves.

The knowledge of the whole system is required here: Why does it happen, what are the reasons, what is our responsibility, what is the goal that we should reach, and what should we fulfill in order to do I that? Only then is it possible to talk about a solution to the problems, only then will there be no more wars end and fallen heroes.

If people could see the general process, they would understand that we are becoming worse than we were before. We are not building a state and a nation, and do not arrive at any consensus. On the contrary, more and more people relate to the nation and the state by putting their self-interests first: As long as a person feels good, he is here, and when it is bad, he leaves the country. He doesn’t tie himself to anything here. Show him a place on the globe that is better and that is accessible and he will leave immediately.

So on the whole the question is: Why are we crying if we are not doing anything? Isn’t it silly and childish? Instead of just shedding tears and avowing never again, let’s find out, let’s look for the reason for what is going on. New planes and missiles are fine, but let’s examine things and focus on clarifying them.

What is lacking? Even in the direct practical sense, why are there so many who don’t join the army? Because we don’t care about the people, about their spirit, about their self-recognition. Look at what we are teaching the younger generation. The point is not about military service, but about a person’s investment in the society. If we don’t worry about that, why should we cry about it afterward?

Isn’t it better to invest in means and efforts to change the internal state of the people, in raising them, thus reaching a general consensus? Otherwise, if people do not recognize the state and its fallen heroes, the sporadic phenomenon will become a general trend.
[76245]
From “A Conversation Dedicated to the Memorial Day to the IDF Casualties and Terror Victims”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 04.26.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Igrot,” Letter 13

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Zohar for AllPassover “Bo (Come Unto Pharaoh),” ”And Pass Over the Lintel and the Two Mezuzahs (Doorposts),” Item 88

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 15, Item 43

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Lesson Topic: The Israeli Nation (Independence Day)

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The Passover Sacrifice

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhy wasn’t it enough for us to receive one page of text from our teachers, from Kabbalists, from the great sages, who discovered the whole upper system and the upper force that will connect us to them? Instead they wrote many articles about different states, about holidays, and about all the levels of attaining the Creator. After all, there is nothing but the attainment of the upper force by studying the changes that occur in the upper system.

Kabbalists described all these states because we have to draw the Reforming Light, in every possible way, in every direction, in all the levels, although we are not there yet.

Today we are reading about these states at the time that matches their corporeal branches, the special time that is connected to Passover: We read about the exodus from the exile in Egypt and about the Passover sacrifice, which means how to come closer (the same Hebrew root korban and karov), and transcend the Machsom (barrier). Besides, we are doing it together in the group, and this symbolizes the whole essence of the exodus from Egypt, of the transition from separation to connection.

We feel the separation as being enslaved to our desire to receive, as separation and shattering. Connection seems like freedom, redemption, the desired miracle! If we read the articles with this intention and want to draw the Reforming Light, it will come.
[76151]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabblah Lesson 4/22/12, Zohar for All

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