TV Program, Israel
July 24, 2008
Bold: Questions/Comments
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized Italics: transliteration from Hebrew
Question: Does one’s soul, which lives and dies, reincarnate into his previous family or into another family? If he lives in Israel, does he reincarnate back to Israel again, or to another country?
Rav Laitman: Souls who belong to Israel, meaning those who once had spiritual attainment in those days when all of Israel, since Abraham, reached a spiritual height, those same souls incarnate back to Israel.
But they will not necessarily incarnate within the same family, as there are many great calculations concerning this, which are not simple. One’s soul will not reincarnate in a tree, a stone or an animal. Man’s soul incarnates in other people, but in combinations and situations that don’t depend on the soul itself. During all of these incarnations, one has to arrive at the integration of all of these souls called Adam, (general soul)—one soul, one structure, one creature that corresponds to the One Creator—where all of our souls are like parts of a Lego system, in the depiction of that one, inclusive, and great soul.
Therefore, there is an integration of all of the souls, one in another, and not one of us has an individual fate or an individual life, but we all live in our soul, that one inclusive soul. Hence, there is no calculation that pertains to one individual soul.
So if she’s asking if the soul comes to the same family, or if it can incarnate as a non Jew and so on, it’s difficult to say, as there is integration between the souls and we, perhaps, should clarify, even though we don’t usually clarify. We would have to discuss this in terms of the individual; there is an individual correction and the general correction. But in general, I don’t think we should engage in that which she understands about the souls.
Moderator: It’s interesting though, and many people are interested in what the soul is.
Rav Laitman: What is a soul? The soul is a part of God Above. What is a part of God Above? God means love and bestowal. If I have love towards the others, and if I have the quality of bestowal upon others, then it means I have a soul. If I don’t have these qualities, then I don’t have a soul.
Moderator: Okay, but I have some kind of a spark, and some kind of a point that reincarnates, and this is what we are talking about?
Rav Laitman: Yes, but this spark is formless. It’s just a spark. It’s just like stem cells; what you can develop there depends on you.
We each have to develop what is within each one of us and it depends on us as to what extent we will develop. Everyone must reach the level of Moses, the peak. Everyone must reach this level, the complete correction of his soul.
Therefore, I don’t worry about it that much, as I know, by chance, from the study and from attainment, that my soul comes down from those who left Spain and so on. But it doesn't occupy me. I am more concerned about the future. I’m not the least bit concerned about the past. I don’t want to think about it at all, not even what happened a second ago. The past doesn’t help me; the next instant is more important for me. We have a song that expresses this.
Life is a short moment between the past and future. This moment that we live right now between the past and the future is life; this is how it is in each and every moment. Why think about past souls? It will be built into a person if he relates to life correctly.
Question: Why do people like the sea so much? Why does it give the sensation of freedom and tranquility? Does it have a spiritual root?
Rav Laitman: Yes, the sea is the sea of Hochma (wisdom); the seashore means the person who achieves the end, the complete wisdom. It is also the unlimited force, as from water comes all life. The spiritual life comes from water as well, from the fountain of wisdom, the fountain of Bina (intelligence.) The spiritual water means Hassadim (mercy); the world was created between water and water. “He separated water from water” (Genesis 1:6). Therefore, water is our whole foundation. Our bodies are also composed of ninety percent water.
In general, all of reality around us is water no matter how dry and solid it seems to us.
Moderator: Is there actual water in everything?
Rav Laitman: Yes, it is foundational and especially spiritual water, because without spiritual water, meaning the Light of Hassadim, there cannot be life.
The Light of Hassadim is the force that connects all of the parts, as when I want to connect one part to another part. For instance, this is wood; once it was a tree. What is the difference between the tree it once was and the still object it is now? The difference is the lack of the force of life, the water that had connected the parts.
The Light of Hassadim is the force that connects all the parts of creation equally, and it doesn’t matter where that connection occurs. A fetus also grows in the water of the womb; without water you can’t grow. Water is the force of giving, the force of love. Therefore, all of life originates from it and all of growth comes from it. That is why people, who have this inclination toward water, connect to it and have a greater sense of themselves near it.
Moderator: That is generally about water, but what about the sea? You said something like “the sea of wisdom,” what is it?
Rav Laitman: It means that within the Light of Hassadim, the Light of Hochma (wisdom) unfolds, meaning, the Light of intelligence, of understanding the connection, of knowing divinity. Therefore, all of the former belongs to the spring of wisdom, water. People are attracted to the water because in a corporeal way, it is a phenomenon that expresses something that we call in spirituality the fulfillment of the soul, both with the Light of Hassadim and that of Hochma.
Questions: It seems that more and more young girls are acquiring eating disorders. One of the problems is anorexia; it means that they are simply starving themselves to death. What is the reason for eating disturbances from Kabbalah’s perspective?
Rav Laitman: We’re moving away from nature and we don’t consume the right things. All of our menus are artificial; there’s nothing good in them. I see people getting up in the morning and eating things that are completely artificial, whereas the Torah recommends to us that we eat the bread of Shacharit (morning). This actually means that the best thing for a person in the morning is a bit of bread with olive oil—that is the best thing there is. We shouldn’t think that in the past, we lived in a limited fashion, and therefore, we had nothing from which to live, and that is why our food menu was limited. On the contrary, we lived by fundamental things, and man’s body doesn’t need more than this.
Look at the animals. Do they need something more than grass for a cow or meat for a lion? They don’t need more. They won’t eat all kinds of chocolate, and cookies, or artificial things we made up by dissolving and composing things from natural foundations and, in our times, even from unnatural foundations. So, these phenomena that exist in modern times, with eating disorders, did not exist until the twentieth century. People always ate basic things—flour and bread—and people were used to it.
The moment people started whitening flour and creating artificial things from these natural foundations, all the problems began. Today, we have a terrible food industry that creates many artificial things. Distorted eating habits, like bulimia and the opposite, anorexia, come from this. The eating models that we have today portray that a person has to look a certain way, and this is all a part of our general corruption.
This corruption won’t go away until man raises his eyes upward, to look to his spiritual development and not to his corporeal development. Then he will give this beast, our body which is actually just an animal, what it needs. This animal just needs the basic fundamental foods and that is it. If man will live this way, he will be the healthiest he can be, and he won’t get too fat or too thin. If we all went back to natural eating habits in general, and felt the nature that is designed correctly toward us, and if we start filling our bodies with this kind of respect by what nature brings, offers, and designs for us, then we will be the most natural and the most well that we can be.
I think that from the corruption that is now discovered, we understand that we are not to partake fast food, of which there has been harsh criticism, and also soft drinks or cigarettes. We will struggle and battle against many things like this, until we understand that we have to return to basic natural foods.
Moderator: One more word about anorexia. Anorexia is a combination of an eating disorder and a social consensus. Even if the social consensus says that a thin woman equals a pretty woman in the twenty-first century, it still doesn’t mean that we have to go to extreme phenomena such as anorexia.
Rav Laitman: People don’t wish for anorexia, but along with the bad food and the social consensus that pushes a certain look, one can develop fears of getting fat and other disorders that a person can become trapped by. Our body and mind can begin to be as though they are hypnotized by social pressure, and we can enter a process that the body can’t stop.
Moderator: Isn’t there a collision here? On the one hand, the body is hungry and needs food, but on the other, the thoughts from the mind are telling you that you need to be thin?
Rav Laitman: But it doesn’t work that simply. Our mind is working in the body in such a way that the body doesn’t want to accept the food. Even if you give it food the body will reject it. The problem is that our bodies follow our minds; the body is not separate from the mind. There is a feedback from the body to the mind and visa versa. According to the mind, I may agree to eat, but the body’s habit is not to tolerate the food; it has received the command and the impression that the food in the stomach is not good.
Moderator: Is there something else to add in terms of the spiritual about this anorexia phenomenon?
Rav Laitman: A person should rise above the needs of the body and think about his spiritual needs, and then all of his corporeal problems will be solved as well, and he will look good.
Question: I have a doubtful past. I sat in prison because of a theft, and I am divorced with two children. About a year ago, I stumbled upon your site on the Internet and got answers for questions I’ve had all my life. Yet, I feel I am so low and contemptible that I can’t approach the study of Kabbalah. I really want to study, and understand, and reach spirituality, but I’ve caused suffering to many people. Do I really deserve to attain anything in this incarnation, to attain spirituality?
Rav Laitman: We already said that a person doesn’t need to look at his past at all. He doesn’t need to look at his past incarnations, and he also doesn’t need to look at his past in his current life. Whatever happened up until today was caused and was done in him. It’s not he that caused this. But don’t say this about the future. Don’t say that what ever he does, he can already say “it’s not me” in advance, as this won’t help, but about the past, I have to say that at every moment, a man is a new man. You remember this saying, right? “A person has to look at himself as a new man every moment and renew himself and build himself as though he was just born.”
Moderator: Is there any category of a person who is not worthy of the wisdom of Kabbalah?
Rav Laitman: On the contrary, the fact that he regrets his whole life is the best state; there is nothing better. As Baal HaSulam writes, “that a person in life, who says that he regrets everything and that he wants to start his life anew, it is then that he is worthy of spiritual ascent.” So it was worthwhile to go to prison, and to go through all of these things and reach this decision, but now he must actualize this decision.
Question: A ten year-old girl is asking, “Is there someone who guards the Creator, or does He guard Himself?”
Rav Laitman: The Creator doesn’t need to be guarded nor does He guard Himself. Do you know why? It is because He is the force of giving and love.
One who wants to give and love and does not worry about himself, why would he need to guard himself? Therefore, if we want to get rid of all the troubles—the cops and guards, problems and damages of all kinds, fears and anxieties, then, we have no other solution but to reach the quality of the Creator—bestowal and love. A person who really loves and bestows upon others, exits out of himself, and feels life outside of him. He forgets about his own life, and he already lives outside of himself, even though his body is alive, or perhaps it dies. This just doesn’t matter; he has acquired life outside of his body. That is why he doesn’t need to worry about himself anymore and he doesn’t need any guards or cops.
Question: I hear Rav Laitman saying that you don’t need to correct the qualities with which you were born, like anger or laziness, but these states relate to others. When am I angry? I’m angry when someone or something doesn’t meet my expectations. So I don’t understand what the correction is. Could there be a correction within me if I still keep my habit of being angry with others?
Rav Laitman: I did not mean that we could continue being angry, upset, and impatient with others. I meant that a person can’t do these himself; the corrections of things that look bad to him.
We don’t know what is good and what is bad; and we are not going to be the surgeons of ourselves, and start cutting ourselves to see whether these qualities are good or bad. We will let the Upper Light do what it needs to do as it says, “I created the evil inclination and I created the spice of Torah.”
What is the Torah? It is the Light that Reforms. By the study of Kabbalah, a person studies about his good and corrected spiritual states, and by that study, he draws from that good, spiritual state, the Light over himself. He starts becoming wise, and starts advancing. He starts becoming sensitive to something that is outside of his bad qualities. Then, he doesn’t deal with his bad qualities. He simply detaches from them, and goes forward.
Therefore, only the Light that reforms is the means by which we were given to correct our ego, our evil inclination. So, don’t try to make yourself wise, as if you know how to correct your evil inclination, but instead, let the Light that Reforms (the benefactor) do it. The benefactor is the good, the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love. By drawing the Light that Reforms, corrects the ego, we revert to love and bestowal.
Question: What is the significance of the commandments, “you shall not commit adultery and you shall not covet the wife of your friend”?
Rav Laitman: Their inner spiritual meaning is that a person should work only with his corrected will to receive. These are the desires, the qualities he has corrected, in order to bestow decidedly, upon others. It’s the coarseness of those desires which come to correction; it is called a “man’s wife.” “Man” means the attraction to the Creator, man, male. Woman is the desire that joins him. Then he goes along with her, as it says “man and woman the Divine Presence (Shechina) dwells among them.” The revelation of divinity happens when he takes a desire that is intended for correction, and corrects it with the intent to bestow. It is then called “his wife.”
If he cannot use that desire correctly, and it still contains egoistic parts, then it is called “the wife of the others.” It’s not his wife, and she does not belong to him, his advancement. Therefore, it is forbidden to make a connection with her in order to reach the Creator, namely “to do the coupling” in order to reveal the Creator. The revelation will not be the result of this coupling; therefore, there is a complete prohibition against it.
Moderator: What does it mean “in order to reveal the Creator”?
Rav Laitman: When a person takes with his intent to bestow, a desire to receive so as to bestow, which is called a “wife,” he is making an act of bestowal, and according to this act of bestowal, he discovers in it the Divinity, the Creator, the action of bestowal itself.
Question: We learn that we need to bestow upon others. How do I know what is good for others?
Rav Laitman: What is good for others is something that we can learn only by studying in Kabbalah, how to exit ourselves. Previously, I didn’t know what was good for others. Every time I wanted to do good for others, I eventually did good for myself. That is my nature and I can’t exit it. However, by the Light that reforms, when we start exiting ourselves, we start feeling the others outside of us. We feel how and what they themselves really want, without any relation to me. Then I feel them and their needs, and this is what it means to “feel the others.”
Moderator: What does it mean without any relation to me?
Rav Laitman: Subconsciously, I constantly think how much I can exploit the others to my own advantage; this is my nature. I am programmed this way, and that is what I will constantly do. We must therefore, remember that the Light that reforms us is the only force that can let us exit ourselves and feel the others the way they are, outside of me.
Moderator: Some of the viewers that are now listening to what you’re saying are thinking that “maybe he’s exaggerating a little.” What does it mean that I’m programmed to do only what is good for me? There are many people who consider others, and who don’t only take care of themselves.
Rav Laitman: Give me an example where people don’t only think of themselves. Psychologists and geneticists all talk about us being one hundred percent egoistic, and that there’s nothing we can truly bestow on others. Rather, all of our giving brings us some kind of profit. I think about others and I want to give them something, but then I am proud of this giving, how good it is, even within myself, without others knowing it. Even if I give something to others, it is because I’m afraid that I’ll not be given things, and I’ll then be needy. Perhaps I think that it may be that if I give, nothing bad will happen to me. I am always thinking of the benefit to me; subconsciously the ego is always there, and modern science has also discovered this.
There is no other way for us to behave and think, as our nature is completely egoistic and our nature is to receive and enjoy, and to be fulfilled. I look at the whole world through this general quality, called the “will to receive,” my ego. Thus, I determine my relationship to everything only from within that desire. I can’t look at the world outside of this desire, or this attitude, and thus, this is how I see this world. The moment I invert my attitude to what I see, not in terms of how I will benefit from it, but how it really is, then I immediately see the spiritual world instead of this world.
The spiritual world is what I discover in the quality of bestowal, the Creator, as well as the corrected souls.
Moderator: Will I then walk on the street and see shadows?
Rav Laitman: No, you are seeing people but you see their corporeal images, the matter, through your five bodily senses. Through your sense of bestowal upon others, you see what exists beyond them: the souls and that one force that is clothed in them, the Creator. “Beyond them” meaning beyond these bodies, outside of their attainment.
Moderator: “Outside of their attainment,” in other words, they don’t perceive it?
Rav Laitman: Of course not; one day they will discover it.
Moderator: This whole story is kind of mysterious.
Rav Laitman: It’s not mysterious because everyone can discover it. There’s no problem; we only have to change our perception of reality. I perceive the whole of reality in terms of how it works for my benefit, and how much I can take for myself and for my own good. Thus, I discover only a slight fragment of reality. If I change my perception from reception to bestowal, then I see everything as it truly is. I see the souls that connect together in that one inclusive soul of Adam ha Rishon (the First Man), and I see the Creator that fills that soul.
Question: Why do I need to love others, and why only within the connection and unity with others can I feel the Creator?
Rav Laitman: That is His quality, and we perceive everything through the law of equivalence of form. It’s just like when you tune in a radio receiver, and you pick up a wave that is outside the frequency band; you are able to pick up this outside wave, because in the receiver, you tune in and create the same wave. You perceive the wave outside, according to the wave inside.
It is the same with the Creator; I have to generate the quality of the Creator, and then I will perceive Him.
The quality of the Creator is bestowal and love. And if through love and bestowal I acquire that quality of being somewhat outside of myself, that is how I will perceive His quality and discover the Creator. Then, we will have a connection. That revelation within me is called a soul, a part of God Above, meaning the quality of Godhood that I have, to some extent.
The “revelation of the Creator” is the quality of bestowal within man
Question: Since I began studying Kabbalah six months ago, I study a lot and it gives me a lot. Once, you said by studying, you present your personality outwardly; you are working on your personality. When I check myself, I see that my whole life was a game. I just played several roles, which weren’t my true “I,” but they were roles that were in order to satisfy my surroundings. My question is: how do I really bring my true inner “I” outward? I have a lot of love to give and when I’m outside of myself, and not alone, everything disappears, and again I play a role. I really want to present my personality outward, but I don’t succeed. What can I do about this?
Rav Laitman: Why does he suffer that much? I don’t understand what the problem is. I don’t understand him because, first of all, how does he know his own personality? Why is he so sure that he has love towards the others? Why is he sure that he has good qualities? Not knowing how to extract these good qualities is a sign that he doesn’t know how to use them, and therefore, he doesn’t have them. One who truly has the quality of bestowal and love, out of that quality itself, one knows how to extract it, and how to use it towards the other. He also has the opportunities to do so. His suffering and questions are a sign that it’s only an illusion that he has some quality that is good towards the others. All in all, he wants only to show that he is so.
Moderator: You’re not saying that in order to insult him.
Rav Laitman: No, God forbid, we are talking about the truth. We want to discover the truth; I don’t know him personally and I don’t want, God forbid, to harm anybody individually. We just want to scrutinize the method. As an investigator, I also investigate myself as much as I can, in an objective way, as though from the outside.
Moderator: Are we all like that? It’s not just this person?
Rav Laitman: Yes, certainly, we’re all like that. In the other part of the program, we said that it is written that everything happens by the Light that Reforms. In this world, we don’t correct anything and we don’t do anything. There is, however, one thing we can do. The Light from Above that designed the whole world, and us and that manages us, and that gives birth to us, and that does all of the actions with us in this world—is the Upper Light which demands of us only one thing.
If we want to develop to be like Him, we need to ask for it. If I study the wisdom of Kabbalah, I know what to ask, because there it is written for me what it means to be better and to be closer to the Light. It tells me how to ask to be like Him, and to ask Him to bestow on me and make me like Him, a man of love, a man of Light, a man of bestowal.
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is the only request needed from me to the Light. And when the Light brings man this quality, it also brings him all the opportunities and ways to bestow upon others and the Light manages his life. The Light from Above, just like it manages us right now and gives us opportunities or not, and brings us to good things or things that look to us as bad things, only this Light is what continues to manage us and not that we manage ourselves.
In each and every moment, if I want to advance correctly, then I ask the Light, “correct me; I want to walk with you together. I don’t want to be humiliated, managed from Above without knowing anything and just live like a beast, not knowing what to do from moment to moment and just perform whatever comes to me, whatever I desire I do.” It is the Light that brings me all these commands, desires and thoughts. I want to rise and be like the Light, and then It brings me the understanding and the discernments of how to do everything. Then I start seeing my path.
It’s not that I think now that I’m good, and I want to bestow upon others. It only comes when the Light corrects and does these actions within me. Man shouldn’t think that he has anything else to do in our world, besides attracting the Light that Reforms. It’s not something momentary where one will then take over and knows how to continue. Rather, it’s continuous all the time, until the end of correction.
Question: If you say that in the wisdom of Kabbalah there is no faith but only knowledge, then what do you mean when you say, “faith above reason?”
Rav Laitman: Faith above reason means that we receive from Above, by the Upper Light that we draw by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, the force that is above our nature. Our nature is called knowledge, “And Adam knew Eve.”
Moderator: What is our nature?
Rav Laitman: Our nature is entirely the will to receive, the will to fulfill myself. If I receive the force to be above my nature in bestowal, or at least be detached from my egoistic desire, this is called faith. Faith means the desire to bestow. In that desire to bestow, I start seeing the Creator because He is also the quality of bestowal. And then, as we described with the radio receiver, I generate the same wave inside that is outside, and then I perceive the wave that is outside.
So, in the same way, if I generate the quality of bestowal by the Light that Reforms, then I already know how to connect to the Creator .We already start to be on the same frequency, and then I discover with that Light of faith and with that Light of bestowal, the Creator. Then, I’m beginning to understand Him. It means that with the Light of faith, I receive the Light of knowledge, that is, through the Light of Hassidim, I receive the Light of Hochma.
Moderator: Allow us to feel a bit of the sensation of what the Light of Hassidim, Light of Hochma means.
Rav Laitman: The Light of Hassidim is the Light of bestowal and love, and the Light of Hochma is the knowing why all is built the way it’s built. It is the knowing of where the Thought of Creation, the desires and thoughts of the Creator, come from, which are revealed in the connection with Him that I build by acquiring the quality of bestowal, of faith. It sounds very strange and unusual to hear, but these things are very simple. In all of this life, we only have to focus on one thing more: attracting the Light that Reforms.
Question: When we are in the level of the speaking, and we can influence souls which are close to us, on the one hand, there is a sensation of great satisfaction as a result of giving, and on the other hand, there is a sensation of great loneliness. I wanted to know what the Rav thinks about this.
Rav Laitman: I don’t know why this is. I never feel loneliness; actually, it’s the other way around. I feel myself connected to the whole world. I understand why the world evolves the way it does, what happens in the world, why it behaves the way it does and why people behave the way they do. I have a connection with millions of people; I have two million students approximately. And many people come to me and come to study and lectures. The person that’s connected to us is together with our community. Moreover, we’re having congresses, gatherings and lectures, and you can come as well and participate in everything.
The most important thing is dissemination. This is the problem that maybe the loneliness comes from. Really, actually, her loneliness might be true, and now I understand. It might be that this lady doesn’t take part in any dissemination; she doesn’t express her advancement in bestowing upon others.
Moderator: When you’re saying ‘dissemination,’ I’ll just make it clear to the audience that doesn’t understand the terminology. Dissemination is conveying the idea of the wisdom of kabbalah and its messages concerning the purpose of our existence, and so on.
Rav Laitman: Yes, dissemination to the others, to those who don’t know. This is how we work. Maybe the lack of that makes her feel emptiness and loneliness.
Moderator: If a person conveys these Kabbalistic ideas forward to others, what does it cause?
Rav Laitman: You know, unfortunately, there are women who are barren, and there is a woman who has a baby in her arms. These two kinds of lives are very different. It is the same in spirituality. There is this kind of sorrow that develops, as though she is not connected to the world, and being empty, she is unable to contribute anything. I think that is the real pain. You have to connect to the others, and find yourself a way of dissemination that is suitable for you, and do it.
For instance, we print our newspapers and you can hand them out in hospitals. We engage in all kinds of activities where you can get our free material, and maybe distribute it somewhere, or just talk to people who are interested in the wisdom of Kabbalah. There are many things that can be done.. The main thing is to think about how to cause humanity to attain bestowal and love.
Question: I heard that there are more women in the world than men. What is the reason or the spiritual root for that state, and won’t there be a problem for some women to find their match?
Rav Laitman: Really, there is a problem. For instance, I was in a congress in Chile for our groups in Latin America, and there is a ratio of five women to one man there. In Columbia, and in other places I visited in Latin America, there is an even greater ratio of seven to one.
It’s hard for me to say what the root of the problem is. But if you ask about the spiritual root, first, we are in a condition where the force of bestowal, which is the spiritual root of the male, is very sparse in our world. Second, men always go to war. Did you know that in World War II, sixty or seventy million men were killed? This is how this disparity occurs, each and every day. In addition, a man’s life is shorter with respect to the woman’s.
Moderator: In what way are these phenomena from the spiritual perspective?
Rav Laitman: From the perspective of nature, the force of bestowal is weaker and smaller in our world, and as a result of root and branch, it is found this way. Furthermore, we need to understand that in all the previous cultures, if we’re talking about thousands of years ago, a man used to have several women. This was true among the nations, and our forefathers lived this way as well. It was so, not just from our forefathers, but it also relates to ancient cultures. This phenomenon stems from nature.
Moderator: What does it symbolize in spirituality that one man has several women?
Rav Laitman: We see that regarding quantities of girls and boys that are born, they aren’t equal from the start. There are always fewer boys than girls. Do you understand? All of these things are in nature in a certain way, where one part is in quantity more than the other part. Then how are all parts to be complemented? According to nature, one man having several women accomplished completion.
Moderator: When the world becomes more corrected, and people develop spiritually and acquire the quality of bestowal and love and the force of bestowal that man symbolizes will grow in our world, will there be more men?
Rav Laitman: I don’t think there will be more men, but everyone will find his completion both in corporeality and in spirituality, because the spiritual root that bestows makes peace. “He makes peace Above and peace in our world.” So there will be completion here as well.
Moderator: So will there be more men? Will the percentage of men rise?
Rav Laitman: No, I think they’ll be equal, meaning there will be equality but in a way that everyone will have his own life. So, one will have a shorter life or a longer life with all its phenomena; but, all in all, there will be complementing between the genders.
Question: I have a question about children’s education that actually pertains to adults as well. Where is the boundary, whether teaching a child or an adult, as to giving and loving others; the desire to do good to the others etc., and turning this person into a rag that gets stepped on by everyone and who nullifies himself in order to satisfy another? How do you explain the difference between these concepts and behaviors to the child?
Rav Laitman: The wisdom of Kabbalah is called the wisdom of reception. Kabbalah means reception in Hebrew, and it teaches bestowal and the love of others.
Moderator: But receiving and giving are the reverse of one another.
Rav Laitman: Exactly, because Kabbalah uses the two forces in man, reception and bestowal, and it says that you have to build from them both. That’s what you have in nature: plus and minus, a force that attracts and rejects. It doesn’t matter what it is, but it’s always two opposed forces. One cannot be revealed without the other, like black and white etc.
So, bestowal and reception, are these two forces that I have that must be balanced all the time in the middle line, and I balance between them. It’s not that I’m generous and you can just step on me, and it’s not that I’m cruel and I don’t give anything to anyone, rather, I balance these things.
Moderator: How do you find the middle line and where?
Rav Laitman: The sign is the Light that Reforms. Let’s read something about it, because there is no alternative to knowing the Light that reforms.
Moderator: I’m reading from the Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot, from item 155 by Baal HaSulam, “Accordingly, we should ask, “why did Kabbalists oblige everyone to study the wisdom of Kabbalah?” Well, there is a great thing to advertise here that there is a wonderful merit to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Even though they don’t understand what they learn, but from the great desire and yearning to understand what they learn they evoke the Light that surrounds their souls.”
Rav Laitman: And these Lights, Baal HaSulam writes, correct us. So, if I have these two forces—bestowal and reception—I have them to begin with because I’m giving and receiving. If I want to know how to use them correctly, I need to have this middle line, the method of how to balance these things. This is exactly the wisdom of Kabbalah: how to be receiving and bestowing in the correct way.
Moderator: And that is by the Light that clarifies it to the person while studying Kabbalah?
Rav Laitman: It gives me the right formula how to behave correctly in each and every case.
Moderator: You are saying that the Light that Reforms will solve all the problems. Now, I’m imagining the viewer that listens to this problem and that problem, and there is only one answer, “the Light that Reforms will correct everything.” Let’s say it is so and that really, the Light that Reforms can solve all the different problems. How can this be?
Rav Laitman: Because it caused these problems. That Light that comes to the desire and is opposed to the desire, builds in the desire all those unpleasant sensations.
The Light appears from Above and we evolve in our desire from below. When the Light and the desire are opposed to one another we feel this oppositeness as suffering of all kinds: diseases, blows, humiliations, disappointments, different kinds of unpleasantness, lack of success, anything, it doesn’t matter what. Everyone has his own trouble. So, these two forces are opposed to one another, and they stand towards each other: our egoistic desire and the Light from Above.
If I want my will to receive to feel good, it needs to match the Light. How will I do that? I will ask the Light to match my desire to the Light, and then this Light affects the will to receive. The Light does not affect it just by showing it oppositeness; it had already seen oppositeness. However, now man wants to be corrected, since his soul is drowning, and he must be corrected, otherwise he’ll die.
And then I start asking for correction, and the Light works according to my request and corrects my desire. I exactly match the Light, and then the Light enters me; instead of Surrounding Light that is distant, the Light enters me and fills me. Then I have a sensation that I live a spiritual, eternal, and complete life, with the feeling of the Creator and the connection with the Upper One. My life receives some fulfillment and some level that is beyond time, beyond place, and beyond all trouble.
Moderator: Where is this beyond that you talk about?
Rav Laitman: Here, with me, within my sensation. Where is it from? You have to change your desire first, with respect to the Light, and let it enter your heart; you don’t do it. That is the method that is intended for this only. What is there in the method of Kabbalah besides love of man? There is nothing else, all the Torah is love of others, all the correction is by the Light that reforms; we’re talking about only this.
People think that Kabbalah is wonders and miracles, holy water, red-strings, amulets, blessings, curses, and the evil eye. Kabbalah is none of those things. Only the Light that works on a man can bring man to love others. That is how man really gets rid of all the evil. This is the only method there is and we won’t be able to correct ourselves by any other method. It is only by that Upper Light that created us that we reach the good life. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah recommends to us; the wisdom of how to receive the Light in our life. It’s really treating the root of the problem.
Question: A question that my seven years old daughter asked me, “Does the Kabbalist feel the Surrounding Light in the way that we perceive the term ‘light’?” That’s the first question. And “can the Kabbalist identify when a person is drawing Surrounding Light?”
Rav Laitman: No, no Kabbalist can attain the Surrounding Light because it is the Light that is not perceived in one’s vessel. He doesn’t feel the Surrounding Light at all. The Kabbalist, with respect to his Surrounding Light, is just like us with respect to our Surrounding Light. He doesn’t feel it because it’s a force that appears and changes him, and only after it changes him, then with these correct qualities, improved qualities, he feels the outcome of the influence of the Surrounding Light.
Moderator: She also asks if a Kabbalist can identify when someone else is drawing Surrounding Light.
Rav Laitman: Yes, it is possible. A Kabbalist, who wants to identify if someone works with drawing the Surrounding Light for correction, can do it.
Moderator: Let’s see if I understood. There is an ocean of Light and there is a person that starts being a Kabbalist. Level number one: a bit of that ocean enters into him and then the rest is Surrounding Light. And in this way, he adds more and more and more and everything that he didn’t attain, is Surrounding Light towards him and that pulls him upward.
Rav Laitman: Yes, and he doesn’t have vessels to attain the Surrounding Light but only vessels to attain the light inside. This is how it is with each and every one, even the greatest Kabbalists.
Moderator: Until he swallows the whole Light?
Rav Laitman: Well, he doesn’t swallow it. He receives it, and unites with Godhood, with the Creator this way. His vessel, where he receives the Light, is called a soul. And it keeps growing. But if he doesn’t deal with his correction, by this Light that Reforms, he doesn’t have a soul. He only has the point that is the beginning of the soul, the point in the heart that exists in every person.
Question: I’d like to ask how Kabbalah treats a serious disease that hits us all of a sudden and what can we do?
Rav Laitman: Kabbalah treats all the things that happen to us from the point that a person is both connected to his egoistic desire to receive and the egoistic desire of the whole world. Even the greatest Kabbalist can be sick with the most serious diseases because he is connected to the whole world, to the whole sum of the souls. Therefore, he can’t just go through something peacefully if all the other souls are yet uncorrected, because in the end, he belongs to that whole body of souls; that general soul.
Second thing, in corporeal life, there is a law, “the doctor has a right a permission to heal.”
Therefore, along with our actions of increasing our study of kabbalah and drawing the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) that does the healing for us, along with it we have to turn to the doctor, and do exactly what the doctor tells us to do in corporeality. And don’t do half measures the way it is customary in certain sectors but do exactly what the doctor says, exactly according to the prescription. And this way both, according through the doctor who is the messenger and by trying to attract the Light that corrects us, by these two forces we hope to succeed.
Question: Is it necessary to disseminate Kabbalah precisely under the name “the wisdom of Kabbalah”? Since it is the wonderful things in this wisdom that can be given to people even without, and maybe precisely without calling it by its Kabbalah name. I’m referring to people who are deterred by Kabbalah because of a prejudice and all kinds of opinions. So would I be allowed to teach my wife and children Kabbalah without mentioning the word ‘Kabbalah’?
Rav Laitman: Certainly right, you are correct.
My question to you is this: what will you say after you explain that the world needs to advance toward this good direction, and that the love of man is a good thing? Everyone uses these words. After you talk about the globalization of nature that forces us to be integrated with nature, with love, and connected with nature (all is good and pleasant and so far), you can explain everything according to laws of nature. But when they ask you, “What’s next, how do we advance, what do we do?” What do you tell them? Just saying be good and be nice isn’t enough as there are many advisors who say those things, but nothing comes of it. You have to reveal to them the method of how to draw the Light that Reforms.
That Light appears to a person only if he reads the authentic Kabbalistic texts, because they are talking about the advanced corrected states of the soul. When I read about the soul, as we have been reading in our text here, then, the Light that Reforms appears to me. So, in the first or second conversation you can explain the way that you want, but afterwards, you will need to reveal that it is the wisdom of Kabbalah.