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The content is based on talks given by Dr. Michael Laitman and is written and edited by his students.

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Regret there Is not Enough Connection

565.01Question: What are the Kelim of holiness that we should guard? Is it the fear of forgetting about the connection between us? Or is it about the fact that in any state one should not forget from whom it comes and before whom I stand? Or is it regret that I am now separated from the others?

Answer: You can think about everything you have just said and regret that there is not enough connection with the Creator, that you are afraid to disconnect from Him, and that He may leave you.

You can put all these feelings and worries in front of Him all the time and ask Him not to move away, not to leave, and not to disappear.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “As Though Standing before a King“

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Enjoy and Enjoy

509Question: We read that the ordinary pleasures of our life are a certain threat to the bestowing qualities, so how can we correctly combine the two types of pleasures: spiritual and corporeal? A person might have a certain reaction: “This is it. I will live without pleasure at all.” But this is also wrong.

Answer: Of course this is wrong. We must definitely receive pleasure from the Creator. And through the Creator, from everything else. If we go deeper into life in this way, we will begin to feel the Creator and everything else after Him.

Question: It is not a secret that we enjoy lessons, articles, The Book of Zohar, and working in a group. But these are also, to some extent, the pleasures of our world. Should we limit them in order to feel ourselves standing in front of the King?

Answer: No. You must connect and pass this pleasure back to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “As Though Standing before a King”

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A 6,000-Year-Long Road

548.03Question: In the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam writes that spiritual correction lasts 6,000 years. What does it mean?

Answer: 6,000 years are 6,000 degrees that a person must go through in order to rise to the highest degree. Or rather, we are talking about desire, because the matter of a person is desire.

Therefore, everyone must go through all 6,000 degrees and through the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut, reach the world of Adam Kadmon, and then the world of infinity.

Question: As far as I understand, does this article only talk about creating a system of correction from above downward, but not about the actual correction of a person who is trying to develop spiritually?

Answer: Anyone who wants to ascend the degrees of spiritual worlds must begin to systematically study Kabbalah. By studying this system, he will begin to feel its influence on him; he will feel that he is in this system and how and what is happening to him.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 11/7/23

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By the Vector of Movement

283.02Question: Are the sufferings we experience our personal sufferings or the sufferings of the Shechina?

Answer: It can be either way. Suffering can come from the Creator because we are the opposite of Him. They can also come from people themselves because they do not want to connect in order to be like the Creator.

Thus, suffering is determined by the vector of movement, whether a person is directed to the Creator or away from Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Two States“

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The Creator Constantly Takes Care of You

538Question: Once a wise man was asked, “How do you not get tired of always being alone?” And he replied, “I have plenty to do. I have to teach two hawks and two eagles, calm two rabbits, train a snake, motivate a donkey, and tame a lion.”

“But where are they?” he was asked. The wise man answered, “They are within me. Two hawks are my eyes, two eagles are my hands, and the rabbits are my legs. The most difficult is the snake. It is always ready to attack, bite, and sting with poison and that is my tongue. The donkey is stubborn and it is my body. The lion wants to rule. He is proud, arrogant, and thinks that the whole world should revolve around him. I have a lot of work to do.”

Is it right to look at the world like this, or at least approximately like this?

Answer: Approximately, yes. What I see and whom I see, I see it all within myself. And that is all my work.

Question: His work, as this wise man says, is always to tame, stop, hold back his tongue, his lion, and so on. Is it correct to be constantly in such a game?

Answer: In such a state, yes.

Question: In relation to what should this happen?

Answer: In relation to one’s egoism and universal compassion.

Question: So compassion should stand before me? And with that in mind, I go through all this. It turns out that everything around me exists for me—everything. And should every person think like this?

Answer: Of course!

Question: Can you say why it is done this way? After all a person doesn’t have such an understanding.

Answer: It is so that you gather such impressions throughout your life and then find a solution.

Question: I have gathered these impressions: There I am beaten and here I am beaten; there I was offended and here my “I” was leveled to the ground, simply trampled on! And I have to say that it is all within me?

Answer: All of it is you. And all of it is for you to understand the plan.

Question: You said that compassion stands before a person. So is that the plan? Aim for compassion?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And I really have to tame everything within me?

Answer: Yes, calmly tame.

Question: So we have constant work and there can be no rest?

Answer: Yes, that is how it is written.

Question: Even as we age and retire in our world, do we still continue this work?

Answer: Yes, until the last moment.

Question: How can one keep this compassion before oneself and live and work with that in mind?

Answer: By remembering that you stand before the Creator who is absolutely kind, benevolent, wise, and is constantly taking care of you!

Question: The most terrible pain and these are my thoughts? The most terrible humiliation and I say, “This is taking care of me”?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/26/23

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How to Enjoy the Creator

509Question: Kabbalistic sources say that working in the Torah and the commandments leads to benefits and pleasures received in the Kelim of bestowal. Why is there so much talk about pleasure if one who works in bestowal does not seem to have to think about them anymore?

Answer: A Kabbalist receives pleasure to please the Creator. Otherwise, what will he give to the Creator? By making calculations, he receives pleasures, feels them, evaluates them, and transmits them to the Creator.

For him the most important thing is the Creator, and the pleasure and everything he does with them are only means of turning to the Creator, achieving the Creator, filling Him.

Question: Why is it that when you feel pleasure from any work in the ten, thoughts immediately come that this is the wrong pleasure, not from what it should be?

Answer: Because it is very important for us that our pleasures are correct and we do not deviate in the opposite direction. After all, if pleasure for its own sake passes through our egoism, then we do not move toward the goal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/23, Writings of Rabash “What Does It Mean that the Creation of the World Was by Largess?“

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The Place of Correction of the Souls

232.05Question: The souls that form the general system of Adam HaRishon are in the three worlds of BYA—Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. What does it mean?

Answer: Souls that are still disconnected from spirituality, from the divine, are in the worlds of BYA in all sorts of states of ascents and descents, and are studying the results of their actions. They undergo preliminary corrections there.

We are talking about people who leave our world and begin to attain spirituality gradually.

Question: What is the connection between the system of Adam HaRishon where the rudiments of all people’s souls, all our desires and thoughts are, and the world of Atzilut, the world of correction?

Answer: The world of Atzilut is above the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. There is a border between it and the worlds of BYA called Parsa. It is necessary to cross it in order to ascend to the world of Atzilut.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 11/7/23

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Don’t Ruin Your Inner Voice

592.01Comment: When you write, you are silent.

My Response: You speak, there is an inner conversation going on within you.

Question: Is there power in silence and writing?

Answer: Yes. Writing is a very effective tool. I would say it is necessary to use it too, perhaps less often. Look how much is written! Everyone is scribbling.

Comment: Splashing out their ego.

My Response: Yes, but in reality, of course, it is necessary to restrain ourselves.

Comment: You once said that all sorts of romance novels and so on, were written only 300 to 400 years ago. Before that, there was a constant search for the Creator and only that was written about.

My Response: Yes, they wrote only about connection with the Creator. People were searching for a way to get connected with the Creator. Then all kinds of technology came along, and people started to travel more, to communicate more, and to lose their inner voice.

They began to pay attention to the connections between people, especially connection between men and women. Throughout the history of mankind there were no novels, novellas, or such genres when it would be possible to talk about or write about it. It all started somewhere with Shakespeare and beyond.

In Judaism, there was none of this at all. And there were no songs about love. Who there even thought of singing about love?

Question: What is “Song of Songs” then, which speaks exclusively about love?

Answer: But it is directed only toward the Creator! That has nothing to do with the retelling of some gender-related feelings.

Question: Was the “Song of Songs,” which was written by King Solomon, his declaration of love to the Creator?

Answer: Certainly, there is genuine love from the soul to the source of the soul, the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/21/23

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Metamorphoses of War

627.1Question: Is there a difference regarding the correction of a person when he dies a natural death or dies during a war?

Answer: Of course there is a difference, but we cannot understand it. We cannot understand the reasons why a person dies this way or another, today or another day.

Question: A war is always accompanied by animalistic fear. Is it possible to turn it into trepidation toward the Creator?

Answer: It can happen only with a person undergoing training for a very long time. If he thinks about this, understands it, and desires to unite with the opinion of the Creator, then he gradually begins to realize what the Creator requires of him and how he can come closer to Him.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/29/23

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Fuel for Actions in Our World

504There are people who are trying to bestow, at least they think so. It is hidden from them that they still are receiving some kind of fulfillment. Their inability to bestow directly without any benefit to themselves is a consequence of the fact that we are created by the quality of the shattering.

It is as if we are being fed from the unclean worlds with the hope that something will be given to us for our noble actions; we hope that, even if it takes a million years, a monument will be erected. Therefore, a person is ready to do something for society.

But if he understood that he will never get anything for it, he will not have found any fuel in himself to make a movement. This is the egoistic desire of each of us to work only for a generous payment.

Comment: Even if it seems to me that I am doing something for the sake of bestowal, the truth is hidden from me so that I can at least do something for the existence of society.

My Response: It is good that it is hidden from you; otherwise, you would want to receive it for yourself.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 10/10/23

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Intention Does Not Replace Action

947Question: As a rule, we do not interfere in the inner work of a friend. If, for example, he stops attending lessons or outwardly shows less activity, we support him. And if he is doing well, we do not touch him. Is this the right approach?

Answer: Why not? If he is on the spiritual path, why bother him? We should just show that we are going together. But if someone turns aside a little bit, we need to try to get him back on the right path.

Question: Let’s assume that a friend did not come to the lesson although he should have come. What should I say to him if he says: “But I work in intention, I pray for you”?

Answer: No, it cannot be. Intention does not replace action because all our actions take place in the ten, in the group. Therefore, we must fulfill all the physical conditions of our connection.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/18/23, Writings of Rabash “Hear Our Voice“

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The Commandment of Circumcision

232.09And since he has one Mitzva, which he always keeps, the Mitzva of circumcision, a Mitzva that the body cannot resist, if he can be happy with one thing, even that he is keeping the Creator’s commandment, if he is thinking about keeping this Mitzva, of which the body has no opinion, by that he can reawaken his work and toil diligently once again, as he did prior to the descent. (RABASH. Article 17. (1985). “Know Today and Reply to Your Heart”)

Question: You said that circumcision is the ability to rise above your desire to receive. The article says that with this power a person himself can reawaken his state of action and work again with full energy as he did before the descent.

How do we acquire this power to rise, the circumcision, to work every time as before the descent?

Answer: When a person rises above his desire, as if breaking away from it, it is called that he circumcises himself. This is when he gets the force of bestowal he did not have before.

Question: How can you acquire this force, how can you rise above yourself?

Answer: By circumcising yourself, that is, by cutting off everything relating to the egoistic desire to receive.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah lesson 11/15/23, Writings of Rabash “Know Today and Reply to Your Heart“

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Questions about Spiritual Work—33

249.01Question: In Baal HaSulam’s article “What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work,” there is a phrase: “In the work, if the thought leads to action … .” Can a person direct thought?

Answer: Of course we can do that. Everything depends on the magnitude of our closeness to the Creator.

Question: What is the difference between the Torah and the commandment, and how is this difference expressed in our work in the group?

Answer: The Torah is a general attitude toward friends, and the commandment is a private attitude.

Question: Which is more important, a group request or a private one?

Answer: The group, of course.

Question: How can we constantly maintain vitality in the group, and is it possible at all?

Answer: You can do it together, and then you will feel yourself rising, like in a hot air balloon.
[320956]
From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 11/17/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam  “What Is Support in the Torah, in the Work?“

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Separate Purity from Impurity

200.01If the Kli is mixed with reception for oneself, which is regarded as “dirty” compared to the light, which is all about bestowal, accordingly, before a person comes to receive sustenance from the Creator, which are delight and pleasure, he must clean himself up from self-reception. At that time, the abundance, which is the pleasure, does not go to the Klipot, regarded as reception for oneself. Rather, the abundance will go to Kedusha because he can aim to benefit the Creator while receiving the pleasure. This is called “eating the food on the pure table.”

After the meal, it is to the contrary. He must give a part to the Sitra Achra [other side]. This means that he says that there is still dirt here, which belongs to the Sitra Achra, and I must still correct myself (Rabash article No. 22 (1988) “What Are Merits and Iniquities of a Righteous in the Work?“).

Question: How can one understand that it is time to give to the Sitra Achra (impure desires)?

Answer: We do not want to give anything to the Sitra Achra. But there is nothing to do; some part still escapes to it. In addition, it is believed that it is also necessary to feed it because it helps us separate purity from impurity, reception from bestowal. This commandment concerns absolutely everyone.

Question: If a person has already committed a sin and has fallen into the Sitra Achra, how should the sinner and the righteous in him work properly to get him out of receiving for himself?

Answer: It is necessary to pull out the sinner with the help of the righteous. And in order to awaken the righteous in us, we have been given the ten, the friends.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/23, Writings of Rabash “What Are Merits and Iniquities of a Righteous in the Work?“

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How Can I Compose a Portrait of the Creator

629.4Question: Where can I get an example of how to become like the Creator if I do not feel Him?

Answer: You will not be able to feel the Creator until at least to some extent you become like Him.

But in our world you will not get such an example. You have to imagine for yourself what it means. You have your qualities, so make a correct portrait of them, and then turn to the Creator and ask.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar

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Unity Is Yearning for Mutual Connection

528.01Question: What does unity mean in our work and how can we bring it to the surface when we are together?

Answer: Unity is when we are all so different, distant, opposite, and even repulsive to each other, but we yearn to unite in order to be able to reveal the Creator in the unity with each other.

This state of yearning for mutual connection is called unity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/23, Writings of Rabash “What Is Peace in the Work?“

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Through Allegorical Storytelling

527.06Question: The Torah describes the sin of Adam. We have all read those stories that, in fact, are telling about the shattering of the vessels. Why is it described in narrative form?

Answer: The Torah is written in an allegorical form because Kabbalists had to somehow describe the process of shattering close to human understanding.

That is, people in those days, 3,000 years ago, just like today, could perceive this information only through an allegorical narrative.

Question: Now we are studying the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”, written by Baal HaSulam in Kabbalistic language. Did they not know this language before?

Answer: They knew, of course, but they did not use it often. After all, people were closer to the description in the type of language as in The Book of Zohar.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 10/10/23

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Feel the Taste of Bestowal

591Question: In Rabash’s article “What is: “The Torah Speaks Only Against the Evil Inclination,” in the Work,” it speaks of a Kli (vessel) in which a taste is felt. This taste is created by spices, and the spices are the Torah and light. How can we attract this light and spices in order to unite?

Answer: The answer is actually simple. The only way to attract the light that unites us is through a common intention. Try to connect with your friends, pray together, ask for unity, and you will succeed.

The Creator is interested in us receiving everything in the reflected light, meaning for the sake of bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/23, Writings of Rabash “What Is, ‘The Torah Speaks Only Against the Evil Inclination,’ in the Work?”

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In Absolute Concealment

290Question: In “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam writes that after the shattering of the general system, impure worlds were formed. What is this about? What does “impure worlds” mean?

Answer: Impure worlds are egoistic forces that unite after the shattering in order to be able to snatch small sparks of light that could give them the opportunity to exist.

Question: Speaking more practically regarding our existence, the world is a concealment. What is concealed from us? Is it the fact that we bestow to each other and can receive pleasure?

Answer: Absolutely everything is concealed from us. The only thing we can do is recognize that the world in which we exist is evil. There is only one way out of this evil; it is with the help of each other to raise our prayer to the Creator so that He corrects us.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 10/10/23

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The Cause of All Diseases

115Question: In the 70s of the last century the problem with AIDS emerged, before that there was a problem with cancer. And nowadays, even infants get cancer. How is this possible, considering that typically there should be some accumulative period for a person?

Answer: What kind of cumulative period can we talk about if all this enters the newborn from the bodies of the mother and father and has been happening for years and generations.

Moreover, it seems to us that this occurs at some biological or even genetic level. In reality, these are problems of a spiritual nature, because we are becoming increasingly disharmonious with nature. Hence, the cause of all diseases is that we are not in balance with the surrounding nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Causes of cancer and AIDS…” 10/29/13

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