Television Program, The Rungs of the Ladder

About the Light

M. Laitman Michael Laitman's, PhD talk with O. Levy Levy,

June 27, 2008

O. Levy: There’s something I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to talk to you about. You speak a great deal about Light.

M. Laitman: That’s the main subject of Kabbalah.

O. Levy: So when someone feels the Light, what does he feel?

M. Laitman: First of all, he feels truth: “feels” truth. We generally think that truth has to do with the mind, but truth has to do with the emotions. The mind merely serves the emotions. So a person begins to feel that he now has some fulfillment, some encounter with the real thing. Anything other than that is simply confusion. It’s something that you’re willing to engage, because it’s true.

You mentioned the word feeling, that's the feeling. That’s why the Creator is called Truth. That’s the feeling of encountering the Light. Aside from that, there’s understanding, fulfillment, security—all of that stems from it.

O. Levy: I know that there are private, personal things that Kabbalists do not talk about, which are not discussed.

M. Laitman: Personal or spiritual things?

O. Levy: Spiritual, their own private spiritual experiences. Still, I would like to ask a few questions, and you, as a Kabbalist, please determine where you how to answer It’s a very intriguing topic. I think that people see you as a Kabbalist and would like to get a sense of what it means to be a Kabbalist.

M. Laitman: Do you think that’s something that can be conveyed?

O. Levy: No, but I want to ask you a very concrete question. We talked about Light. When did you first sense the Light?

M. Laitman: This is something I can talk about. Many of my students have also experienced that. Light is felt for the first time by an individual when he starts to study Kabbalah and then all of a sudden, it’s like a revelation in which he feels he’s in the sea, or a cloud, in something thick and warm with love shining on him from all directions. It's as if this world doesn’t exist, and everything other than that, he feels that the air is filled with a beautifully loving quality, pulsing with vitality. That is usually the sensation of a person’s first encounter with the Light.

O. Levy: How does one attain something like that?

M. Laitman: Through yearning…

O. Levy: How did you attain it?

M. Laitman: Oh, I was working, and I was busy with all sorts of things. I had a family of course, and everything else, but inside, in addition to all of those external things, there was always a desire, a drive to reach something more internal. But where is it? There's more to this life and you can’t find it. But, for you, it’s very important.

O. Levy: So, basically, an individual reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah through feeling that there’s something more internal that one desires?

M. Laitman: I reached it, if that's what you’re asking me. I reached it after going around in circles. Perhaps almost twenty years had passed, from the time I first felt the desire until I reached the wisdom of Kabbalah.

O. Levy: And that began when you had the first desire to find something beyond?

M. Laitman: I think I started sensing the first desire around the age of eleven or even before that.

O. Levy: How do you actually remember that?

M. Laitman: Yes, I do I remember. I remember wanting to attain the inner aspects of things. Why is everything going around? What am I doing here? Etc…

O. Levy: How is that connected with Light?

M. Laitman: It draws the Light, because the Light is actually what fills all of Creation. It is the force that created us, maintains us, and carries us through life events, until we see that it fulfills us.

O. Levy: So when you say “the Light,” do you mean the Creator? You say it’s the force that created us.

M. Laitman: The Light is the Creator. The Light is the same warmth and love that a person reveals for the first time as a result of his yearning for something, for the internal aspect of life.

O. Levy: Yearning for the internal aspect of life. So the first time you felt that yearning was at the age of eleven?

M. Laitman: I think even before that, but at that age I was already frustrated and somehow searching.

O. Levy: What do you mean by “frustrated?” Do you mean feeling dissatisfied with regular life around you?

M. Laitman: Yes, I was already beyond all sorts of books, and interested in things that might provide me with some Light.

O. Levy: Okay. That was the desire you had in your childhood. You said before that, in order to reveal the Light, one needs the desire.

M. Laitman: That's what determined my entire life.

O. Levy: That determined your entire life. And when did you encounter the Light for the first time?

M. Laitman: That was after I started going to Rabash when I was living in Rehovot. Before that, there were things that, as I understand them now, needed some clarification. But the first time I sensed the Light and felt the love that fills the world, that when I was already studying with Rabash, in the year 1979, I suppose.

O. Levy: You mean your teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag?

M. Laitman: Yes, Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag. I started studying with him in February of 1979.

O. Levy: Let’s go back to that same day you felt the Light; you probably remember it. Describe what it was like before. What precedes it?

M. Laitman: The sensation is like a wave of warmth coming closer to you, like a heat wave. You start feeling it from a distance, then slowly, you start feeling your reality from within that cloud or force field that fills the world. This force field conveys feelings of love to you, in that it sustains you, that everything in the world is under its control, and other than that, there’s almost nothing.

You see people, and you see everything, but it is unimportant compared to the feeling that dominates and fills you. It reveals the essence of life—that there is someone, some force, some fulfillment in our space that fills everything. It sustains us, thinks of us, and takes care of us from behind the scenes where we don’t see or feel it. It sets things up for us like a mother for her baby, who still doesn’t see or feel anything, thus guiding us towards a specific goal, a specific way of development.

O. Levy: Does feeling the Light take you by surprise?

M. Laitman: It still isn’t the Light as we refer to in Kabbalah. It is just the first encounter. A few days later, that feeling dissipates. It leaves similar to the way it came, but it comes relatively quickly, and then after a day or two it begins to cool down, and the person is left wondering what that feeling is for.

I had asked Rabash. That’s why I can talk about it, it's allowed. Rabash said that that’s the first encounter [with the Light], which after all, corrects a person later on. It raises us to the level in which you enter that flow, and now you have the basis upon which to continue further.

O. Levy: It’s like giving you a taste of something beyond reality as we know it?

M. Laitman: No. What you felt, as how great, pleasant, or how fulfilling it is compared to that of the entire world, the feeling passes. What arises in us, is called Reshimot, which are informative particles. We’re always given them, and it's the only way we feel.

Therefore, after a while, the feeling of that Light dissipates, and you are back in your regular life again. The yearning and asking, frustration and questioning begins all over again, as if the fulfillment never occurred.

O. Levy: And now what?

M. Laitman: After that, there is a great deal of arduous work until an individual actually attains a new state, but in a conscious fashion. He draws the Light to himself while studying, and through all sorts of actions that Kabbalists suggest we do, and from this he draws this Light. He doesn’t know he’s attracting it, and he is also in that Light that he had, but he doesn’t sense that. He draws strength to himself in order to reveal the Light according to the equivalence of form.

In other words, let’s put it this way: the first time you reveal the Light you are similar to an embryo in the womb. This Light envelops you and cares for you. It makes no difference who you are, what you are, how you behave, what your egoistical tendencies are, none of that. It loves you, takes care of you, and advances you. Then, when it disappears, you need to work in order to be born.

To be born means to be somewhat similar to that Light, to be at the first degree, and that’s the extent to which you sense it. You start to feel not only how it operates you, but also how it fulfills you, to the extent of the equivalence of form you have with it.

O. Levy: That which fulfills you is something new? It wasn’t there in the first feeling of being enveloped in a cloud, as you said?

M. Laitman: No, I wouldn’t say that. It might look like that to people, but it’s totally not the kind of fulfillment as I understand now. As I mentioned before, you feel the Light as love, giving, bestowal, and caring. If an individual acquires these characteristics, and to the extent one acquired them, even to the minimum degree you have become like it. Everything is measured according to stages, or degrees. If you conform yourself to the Light, you immediately meet at that degree and according to that desire, it is revealed.

O. Levy: How much time passed from the time of your initial encounter with the Light and the more advanced level you built within yourself in that first degree?

M. Laitman: No, in the middle there were all kinds of feelings and small revelations, but not as in the initial feeling. These were the feelings of enthusiasm, excitement, knowing and understanding, and of course, desperation, difficulty, overcoming, and feeling somewhat closer, again, with an acquaintance through the mind and heart, but from a distance.

After a few years, an individual receives different impressions, and then a person attains the first revelation in which he conforms with the Light.

O. Levy: Describe how that feels.

M. Laitman: A person begins to understand what's real and what isn't in a conscious and mature way. It’s not as if you’re being massaged externally, rather it’s an internal feeling of attainment and in your sensation of where you are, and how you identify with the Upper Force. In the middle, there is the building of the vessel, of that desire to conform with the Light, something which is impossible to explain so readily. A person rises above his regular desire.

O. Levy: I hear that description, but perhaps you can try to describe it differently, like how you described the emotional impact of the first encounter.

M. Laitman: The feeling is not like the first sensation. In the initial feeling, you feel infinity. In the feelings that follow, you already feel it within your vessels.

O. Levy: But what is it you feel?

M. Laitman: On the one hand it’s not like the first time, because as our books say, “an embryo in his mother’s water sees from the end of the world to infinity.” “A candle on his head, he is taught the entire Torah.” That is all of the Light is shining upon him. That’s the first encounter.

O. Levy: But are you talking about us, about the spiritual experience of a mature person?

M. Laitman: Yes. It’s compared to “an embryo in his mother’s water.” This is the Light that is revealed to him. There, he feels he is in an unlimited situation. Later, when he begins to know the Upper Light, the Upper Force, he begins to understand it according to his degree, within his limitations, because he doesn’t grow all at once.

It’s like a child, who is no longer an embryo, but is born, and is now a baby where he begins learning about life on his own. So now he must eat, drink, play, and do all kinds of things that he is forced to, in order to grow.

In other words, he already perceives that, he’s not given everything in this world. But he’s given what he needs in order to exist. Beyond the fact that you need to grow, a person also needs to exert himself to get closer to the Light, in order to be a man (Adam, spiritually speaking). “I will resemble the Light.”

O. Levy: Let’s go back for a moment to the initial feeling in this growth process, when he is already growing on his own. How does it feel? I understand it’s a degree, that it’s limited, and that it's not like the first time.

M. Laitman: It’s both an emotion and an understanding.

O. Levy: An emotion and an understanding of what? Can you describe it to me in more emotional words, so as to produce that feeling? I understand the feeling you described before, but what about now?

M. Laitman: You understood the previous feeling because that’s something that can be described to every individual. For that feeling you don’t need vessels, because there’s no actual revelation there, that is to say, there’s no revelation that’s considered a “revelation.” But here, we’re talking about what an individual reveals within his own vessels, in other words, within his desire which is similar to the Creator.

Let’s say, I have many desires. Let's say that out of my large, egoistic bubble, I have corrected some of the little desires. I have corrected a certain part, in that, I feel equivalence with the Light, with the Creator. That equivalence comes from my internal vessels, which were already there, and now I feel them. Within them, I also understand who the Creator is, what the Creator is, how I can equalize with Him, and why I’m operated in such a way. In other words, all of the powers of Creation, all of the beginnings and ends of every single thing, I now reveal to a certain extent.

I don’t think that it is allowed, or even possible to express it emotionally. What can you compare it to in this world? It’s like when how pleased a scientist is when he reveals something, and how much he understands, but it’s not quite the same thing. When you reveal what pertains to your soul, you reveal your life at a higher degree, and you rise above this reality. You understand and sense Creation, the reality of what is going on here. You discover yourself above this world, beyond life and death, and understand how that reality, that force, fills and operates the world , down to the last detail. I don’t think it's possible to convey that.

O. Levy: You say that you discover what’s happening here. What is happening here?

M. Laitman: What’s happening here is that everything is operated by that one Upper Force, the One with whom you somewhat identify with now. Therefore you can also see, feel, and understand it.

O. Levy: And what is It?

M. Laitman: It itself is that force of love. Out of love and care, it leads us through all of the stages in order for us to know it.

O. Levy: Now, insofar as the first degree of the second time, when you already consciously sense the Light in your emotions and mind, does that also pass a few days later or does that remain?

M. Laitman: Yes and no.

O. Levy: What passes, and what remains?

M. Laitman: Your feeling and enthusiasm surely pass, but what remains is what is called “the way of Torah.” In other words, Reshimot from the Light that you had, and with which you continue on your way. You do not fall back to being a regular person, detached from Divine Guidance. Rather, that Divine Guidance transfers your emotions to an impression of it, into your memory, so that it doesn’t interfere with your independence and investment of self. This occurs according to how much you are capable of progressing spiritually.

In other words, there comes a certain stage in which you are given the option of independent progress. Even though you were already in a situation in which you see and feel that everything is operated from above. Egoistic desires arise, which did not participate in that same feeling of initial encounter with the Creator, with the Light. In fact, they extinguish that encounter. So now you need to work again in order to reach equivalence and Zivug (coupling), as it is called—unity with the Light, with the Creator.

O. Levy: Why is it called “coupling?”

M. Laitman: It's called “coupling” because it’s the Light that fills you. You are in the position of Nukvah (female), and the Light fills you as the male.

O. Levy: Why are you then female?

M. Laitman: Because a desire, a deficiency, is when something is lacking, and it’s called female. Nekev means hole, opening.

O. Levy: And so the Light fills you. How is life thereafter? How does one continue after that?

M. Laitman: I can’t tell you that life changes all that much. It is, rather, that you feel more responsibility, you understand why and for what purpose you are living, what your role in life is, what the Upper Force is, and what it wants from you. But, even given all of this knowledge, it doesn’t take away any freedom, any free-choice whatsoever. This is because each time, new vessels of uncorrected egoistic desire arise within you. They were there before as well, but you didn’t sense them. Within these new vessels of yours, you will vacillate between becoming new and then being deficient again.

That’s why it is written, “There is no Tzadik in the land, who will do good and will not sin.” This is because everyone starts from the sin, revealing more and more ego within him, and then he corrects himself, equalizing that ego with the Light. He corrects it to the degrees of love and giving, and reveals the Light within him once again. And so, he corrects himself over and over again, until his entire ego from the original sin of Adam ha Rishon, is completely corrected. That is called “end of correction.”

O. Levy: After the first time you felt the Light, how did you feel towards other people around you?

M. Laitman: First of all it’s an extremely internal, intimate and personal feeling—one that you can’t tell anyone about. That initial feeling isn’t spoken about to anyone as well. It comes in such a way that makes a person speechless. It’s like talking about what’s most precious to me in life, something that is extremely internal and secret, so I don’t talk about it to anyone. I’m not capable of talking about it. That’s how it always is with our personal things. So you don’t talk about it, not even about the first encounter, much less the encounter of fulfillment of all the levels.

O. Levy: But how do you feel towards people after this revelation? Any difference, now that you have something new?

M. Laitman: I only feel what has been expressed to us by each Kabbalist in his books.

O. Levy: Which is what?

M. Laitman: Committed to helping them reveal that point of free choice and teaching them how to manifest what I feel. Because that's what the truth is. Other than that, a person sees that everything is in the hands of God. But that free point, in which one can feel a drop of unity with the Light, can only be developed and attained by himself. Here, from my perspective, there can be a great deal of assistance to everyone who wishes— to whoever also feels some inner drive for something internal—the inner life.

O. Levy: I would like to backtrack a little. We said that an individual reveals the Light, and that he does not feel the need to speak about it because it’s intimate, internal, and very personal. On the other hand, he does have the desire for others to sense the Light as well, right?

M. Laitman: He feels responsibility. It's because the revelation is actually revealing that we are all in one system. Just as the Force operating upon us all is one, so the Light is one. Accordingly, a person feels he must be the same as with the Light, that not only I, because it can’t be just that “I.” Rather, that all of us must be connected together with that same Light. However, it also depends on the type of soul, and not each and every one, I think.

O. Levy: Did you feel like that?

M. Laitman: Yes, I felt that. I was educated in this way by my teacher Baruch Ashlag, and that's what we must publicize. We also see how Kabbalists speak of publicizing and disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah.

O. Levy: I would like for us to end our discussion. I’m certain that we’ll continue talking about this topic, but for now, can you offer some kind of advice that can show me the importance of this thing called “Light?”

M. Laitman: A person who encounters this Light becomes real. He can’t present himself as pompous and important, because he can’t lie. He can, however, present himself in all sorts of ways toward his students. Sometimes it's like a mother who will be stern with her child, and at other times, she'll act differently, and so forth. But it's all out of love.

In other words, a person becomes simpler. This is because the Upper Light is simple, and he is getting closer to it. He becomes more honest, rising above the business of this world, which is false, and he has a simple job. This revelation makes him realize that he has enough for existence, that he has a family, and that’s sufficient for him. On the one hand, he has a sense of responsibility towards what he does, but on the other, he has a total lack of consideration for anything artificial and truly false. He is not really capable of calculating if it is worthwhile or not, as we all see how that’s true from prime ministers down to simple people.

In other words, the Light straightens people out, and at the same time, causes them to be extremely simple and honest. I don’t think that even great Kabbalists in previous generations were not any different amongst themselves, unless they had to act that way towards their people. After all, I had the honor of seeing a few great Kabbalists, who are no longer with us in this world, and they were all different. Some were very simple people, very honest, even somewhat naive, if that can be said. It’s not so much naiveté, rather, it’s the simple law that compels them to relate to everything in that way.

Therefore, I hope that the Upper Light, which we so hope for, will affect the entire world, and will correct our world, so that we’ll all become people who will become like them.