ARI Films

Ups and Downs in San Francisco

It all started when we saw the film “What the Bleep Do We Know.” We are members of the World Academy of Kabbalah headed by Rav Michael Laitman.

Having seen the film, we were surprised at how close modern science has come to confirming the Kabbalistic view of the Universe. Scientists, specializing in quantum physics, discovered on their own the depth of matter described by Kabbalists more than 3000 years ago. And we decided to meet with them.

We arrived in San Francisco in March 2005. What did we expect from the meeting? We wanted to be heard. The people in the audience were mostly young students who had come to meet their favorite scientists.

The film was a hit in North and South America, Europe and Japan. It had collected more than 10 million dollars in box office revenue by that time. More than 420 thousand DVDs had been ordered the previous month.

It all started as a regular scientific conference. Scientists approached the podium, and began to speak about the science to which they had devoted their entire lives; about the film that had turned them into stars.

Jeffrey Satinover MD: [MD in Psychiatry, MS in Physics, past President of C. G. Jung Foundation of New York, and the Department of Psychology and Religion at Harvard University; author of seven books including, The Quantum Brain and The Empty Self]. I gather pretty much everybody here saw the film; is that's a fair assessment? So I don't have to review anything in it.

William Tiller, PhD: [Professor Emeritus of Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University; Author of over 250 scientific publications and several books, including Conscious Acts of Creation, and Science and Human Transformation.] In exotic physics, there is a higher electrical magnetic gage-symmetry state than our normal environment, which is called the SU2 state, and at that state electric and magnetic monopoles are naturally supposed to co-exist.

Presenter: Our next speaker is Fred Alan Wolf, PhD.

Narrator: And then Dr. Wolf approached the stand. No-one had anticipated what was about to unfold. He didn't say a word about his own science:

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: [PhD in Physics from UCLA; Physicist, lecturer and writer; author of eleven books, including Matter into Feeling, A New Alchemy of Science, and Taking the Quantum Leap.] I really don't know what I'm going to say to you. You know, I've been studying physics and I knew something about that technology, but Kabbalah is a science where something would never even have dawned on me. I don't care what you're doing, there is something about this field of way of thinking, of seeing, which can improve anything. And I don't care if you're a Jew, a Muslim, a Gentile; I don't care what you are. I don't care what nationality; I don't care what religion you belong to, there's something in this that will, I think, awaken something in you...

Narrator: In order to understand what had happened, we need to go back to the previous day, to his one-on-one with Rav. Unfortunately we did not start shooting from the beginning, but Fred Alan Wolf, PhD’s question was—"how to stop endless conflicts all over the world.…"

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, PhD: The soul consists of three lines: middle, left and right. All the conflicts in the world are over who controls the middle line. There is no use trying to settle these conflicts on our level; we have to rise along the middle line.

The two lines on the sides are long, containing 10 Sefirot. The middle line is short—it begins above the lower third of the other two lines. The left and the right lines are connected to the middle line and provide it with their lower thirds. And that causes all the conflicts, pain and suffering in the world.

We need to disengage from this lower third and rise up to our own part, which are the vessels of bestowal. We can accomplish this only with the help of the Upper Light, the Light of Kabbalah, the Light that surrounds our souls, that enhances our vessels of bestowal, and that makes them stronger than the lower third. If we can transform ourselves this way, the same process will take place in all of humanity, in the billions of people that live today.

I will give you the Introduction to the Book of Zohar today. This process is described there, starting from item 60. It tells us how we can change the entire world through inner transformation, because each person has a small world within him.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: When people study Kabbalah it gets them because suddenly certain truths about what is going, what is this happening, begin to become clear, clearer then they were before. And suddenly you begin to see that whatever it is that you were working on, whatever it is that you think is the most important thing in the world, begins to kind dissipate into kind of less and less importance, and you begin to see a bigger picture of what's going on. Kabbalah will help liberate your mind from any shackles of thought that keep you ensconced or enclosed into a certain way of thinking.

Now, if these words are awakening you right now, you know it. If they are not awakening you right now, then I suggest to you that you have fallen asleep. Thank you.

Narrator: We agreed to meet later that day behind closed doors. We drove along the streets of San Francisco and shared our impressions of the past day. We were preparing for the day to come.

We knew from personal experience the effect that Kabbalah by repeating the same question day after day. But, they no longer come from the mind; they come from the heart. One begins to search for the middle line that Rav had described—the middle line within. And it is not easy. And so it happened.

Barry, the American writer wanted to start the discussion smoothly, by the book, but instead, he was confronted by Fred Alan Wolf, PhD’s fiery personality:

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: Are you a practitioner of the observance of six or more senses. Can you talk about your experiences in that world? I would like to learn from you what you are talking about, otherwise it's just all.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: No.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: No, he does not want to talk about it?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Because you do not have the same sense and the same reminiscence.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: You cannot just throw that at me and say, "except it, this is the way it is, I'm Kabbalah, that's what it teaches you, and if you don't do this, you'll be" That's bull*** to me.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: So please allow me to talk...

The wisdom of Kabbalah states that reality is only a will to receive, for self-fulfillment. That desire is built through expansion of the Upper Light [Rav Laitman drawing]. Light is giving, bestowal, love. We call it "Creator." It created something called a Kli, a vessel or a desire to enjoy wants to be filled by precisely what is in the Light.

Narrator: And then Rav began to describe four phases of the Upper Light.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: If the creature receives pleasure, the Creator enjoys; if the creature does not enjoy, the Creator does not enjoy.

Narrator: We must give full credit to the scientists. They sat, listened, took notes, and began to understand. The fact that they were open was a testimony to the them being genuine scientists. Then Fred Alan Wolf, PhD raised another question:

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: You laid it out beautifully, but I want to understand better, if I may, to see if I understand this right:

1 – There is a Creator who desires to give, yes.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Yes.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: He gives to a dummy?—it's just a Golem, it is a Golem.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Right.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: Now, the next state, from 2 to 3, what happens?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: In state two it begins to feel the Giver Himself, It's nature.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: In stage two the Golem is coming alive, is that what's happening?

Narrator: And everybody joined in the discussion.

Prof William Tiller: It requires a threshold of Light to spontaneously generate consciousness.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Entrance of the Light and its departure builds these impressions, these vibrations inthe Kli and the consciousness...

Narrator: Dr. Jeffrey Satinover. As it turned out, this was not his first encounter with Kabbalah…

Dr. Jeffrey Satinover: Ramchal talks about the world having a deterministic and non-deterministic component and also about, some human beings just having no place whatsoever—I'm referencing that from his book, Derech Hashem.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Ramchal was one of the greatest Kabbalists. Ramchal taught Kabbalah. He was thrown out of his city; he was boycotted.

Derekh Hashem—(the Path of God) is a path of 10 Sefirot. The entire spiritual ladder is divided into 10 parts. Even the first part in this ladder is already above the barrier.

Narrator: A tornado swept over San Francisco that evening, but we did not notice it. We felt that we were close to finding a common language, but there were clashes to come. Back at the lecture…

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: If the heart is the desire, and the point in the heart that awakens is the sensation of the Creator, and at that time a person through this point begins to want something that is beyond the desire, such people—they aren't many in the world, but those who awaken; and they grow, and they grow—those people want to realize that point, but at the end of the day everyone, in the end all humanity, the billions of people will have to come to the evolution of that point and they will have to reach the same level as the Creator Himself.

Narrator: And then Rav mentioned a topic that we now know is a touchy one …

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Because the Creator, because He is good, well He created the creature, with the sole intention of bringing it to the good.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: It must be a kind of a dumb Creator because all we got here is a lot of real problems. In our desire to be like the Creator, we start killing each other. In our desire to be like the Creator, we create Hitler. It all comes from love and desire; there's no evil there, there's no…Hitler wasn't evil, he just loved his own god and his own desire, and you know, "kill these other people because they're not worthy," right. So what kind of God is this; it must be a dumb God; stupid God in fact.

Narrator: Rav approached the board again and continued to explain.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Our common soul is called "Adam." [Rav Laitman drawing] It is the Kli, that vessel that the Creator had created with our will to receive, and it's filled with the Upper Light. Now, within this body called Adam, there are all the parts are connected like in one body, harmoniously.

Now this soul is broken. It falls into a degree that is called "below the barrier," and at the "barrier," the spiritual sensation ends. Here, below the barrier, there are those, the same parts, but a feeling that that they are disconnected one from the other.

Now, why the fall and then the ascent back up? So that here we find out how much we hate each other. That's the breaking—everyone's egoism. Because of that we will understand why we need to willingly rise up back to unification.

Narrator: There were moments when we thought we'd have to pack up and leave. We had a sense of a total lack of communication. This is a glance back at one of our meetings…

Prof William Tiller: You seem to be presenting Kabbalah as the truth and it read like dogma. Be open; be open to the fact that there are other power models.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: People come to me from every generation; they are so different. No one is limited; anyone can begin to study and see how it works within them.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: That's not what we're saying; you are missing the point. In physics we had Newtonian Mechanics; it was wonderful, it explained everything. Everybody believed it was right. And then came Quantum Physics. Now people don't accept new things when they commit. The first thing, react with "Hit it, ahh, we don't want it!" "We don't want it!" It is wrong...

Prof William Tiller: I have developed a model which I find is very useful in explaining. In know I have not proven it; I know it is not the truth, it is a work in progress, it's a theory in progress, and it will take a long, long time to prove.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Because they attain reality from below upward…

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: How do you even know that? You make a statement like that. He has arrogance.

Narrator: Still, despite it all, the scientists stayed on. They listened; they took notes.

As scientists, they know that ultimately it is the only way to discover the truth.

Once more at the lecture…

Prof William Tiller: Love, desire, Light, wisdom flow through the world and that benefits the Creator...

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: I am afraid to say it is not so...

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: Pour qua?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Because in order to be a hose for the Light, we have to have the same properties as the Light because it all connects through a process of equivalence of form.

Now if you can take your desire—first of all, discern what exactly it is. It is not some intentions or properties; it is a desire. You can begin to relate to the pleasure that comes to you, as it is says here, "by even one percent; if you begin to do that, you will feel the Creator."

Narrator: Thus, lecture followed lecture. We captured ten hours of lectures on video—videos of Rav explaining all of the wisdom of Kabbalah. We saw the city only through the car window on our way back and forth from the hotel. They tell us it's beautiful.

Let’s return to the lecture…

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: We have letters, say like [Rav Laitman drawing] Aleph, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, and then Aleph again, etc. There are no words there, they're dots there. And we might have 20 such letters, or six such letters, or three or four. All in all they give us, how should I put it, a formula, in which we have to do things inside, with our desire, and that's how one is taught how we should perform actions of receiving in order to give to the Creator. That's what we call G-d. It is an unchanging law, operating on every item in creation.

Let's say that creation [Rav Laitman drawing]. So that's the creature. And that law operates on the creature in order to bring it to equivalence of form with the Creator, so that they equalize; so that the creature and the Creator will merge together to the point of no difference. So what's so special here, He could do it in the beginning? The thing is though, that the creature has to develop within itself a desire to be like the Creator.

Narrator: Now there is a sensation that every word is being heard but how hard it was to get there.

We recall …

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: I do not come into any spiritual order that says "I know the truth." Nobody knows how G-d does this. You don't know. And I don't care how much learning you've got, you can't claim such a thing. It's so humorous; it's so egoistic. To me it's the heights of egoism. He teaches as if it's the only way, and it can't be the only way. You reject it by my saying, "I know what G-d does, G-d talks to me." You said, "no" because He talks to…I said "How do you know?" and you said, "I don't want to get into it personally." But the feeling was, you know, and I don't know. Because you're a Kabbalist you know, but I guess I'm not a Kabbalist, I don't know. But you don't know what I've experienced in life. You don't know where I've been. You don't know who I've hung out with or what experiences I've had.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: There is nothing you can do about it.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: You do not know what I've seen.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: In our world there is nothing that doesn't come down from the world of Atzilut—the Forces, the substance, actions, time, space, motion, everything possible.

What is here, in this world, [Rav Laitman drawing] is called a "branch," which is an upshot of what exists in the Upper World. So how do I tell someone something about the Upper World? I take the names from this world—of people, things, places, society. I refer to what happens here [Rav Laitman drawing] in the World of Atzilut, but I take the names from here, and there.

If one knows only about this world, then the story takes place in this world. And then he imagines the Creator as a big person. But one who understands that it takes about something beyond this world, seeks where it is up there [Rav Laitman points to picture].

Narrator: In Kabbalah, you never know when that moment will come, when all the pieces fall together. A major inversion takes place and it all begins to make sense.

Back at the lecture…

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: But still, how do I receive pleasure and constantly enjoy endlessly? So, there has to be someone out there that I enjoy because He enjoys. It's as if the pleasure goes through me, to Him. So then, I'm not put out, because my pleasure is always here, like a mother who enjoys with her baby. She wants always to give to it.

Prof William Tiller: To you recognize yourself as part of the whole; of course.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: Right, that's it. That's the purpose. Why do we need to break and then to go back up?

Prof William Tiller: It is to learn the physics of the lower level, and then to go back across the line and learn the physics of the higher level.

Narrator: So here we have it. Leading scientists who recognize the limits of their field, meet Kabbalah, which tells them that in order to overcome that limit, they need to alter themselves, to change, and only then can they read the whole new world. And that's not easy to hear, not easy to accept, and yet, they endure, but it was very hard.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: I think I'm a giving person; I think I give a lot of myself in what I do. Maybe it's my ego talking, I don't know, but I…

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: I think we're all egoists.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: I have no idea what G-d is, but I feel G-d's presence. Every once in a while I see G-d, so what does that tell me?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: What do you mean? You know, you don't feel? There's no such thing.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: What do you mean?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: If you feel It, can you measure it?

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: What are you talking about? If you can't know G-d, you can't feel G-d, you can't…

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: We are talking about a research of what the Creator is, only in a scientific manner. Meaning, I feel Him; I measure Him; I give measurements and numbers to every sensations; I check the tool with which I feel Him. That's the wisdom of Kabbalah; of course.

I have numbers. Let's say from 0% to 100%, and I know exactly which Lights go where, and how powerfully, under which conditions. When I take something of the table, I define in it as taking it from the Creator, and what pleasure I give Him by that, and then, what kind of connection it creates between us.

Narrator: That was our first experience of taking to leading scientists. Maybe we were unaware of certain things—the mentality is different. But Rav Michael Laitman, PhD continued to lecture. In Kabbalah, there is no such thing as mentality. In Kabbalah, everyone is absolutely equal.

Back at the lecture…

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: How do we learn about the two levels? If we—the ones who really feel from within [Rav Laitman drawing] that part, the point in the heart, the desire to go back to spirituality and feel it—we begin to learn about our situation up here. And that's the wisdom of Kabbalah.

So, we learn about us being hear, when in fact we are already in that state, but we don't feel it. But, by wanting, in our blocked states, to awaken and feel the true states, if we learn about our true situation, we draw on ourselves—it's as if we draw the Light that's present there. Because I'm in that world, in that state, I'm not aware of it. But, if I make every effort to become conscious of it, to be awakened, my desire, my impulse to do it, opens up my additional vessels, and then we begin to feel spirituality.

What does that mean? We begin to feel how we are all interconnected, as one body, and then, through each and ever one, Infinite Light follows endlessly, and without any limitations.

All the problems that we feel today in the world are only so to force humanity to begin to go back up.

Dr. Jeffrey Satinover: My guess is that, that is certainly not believed by a vast majority of the top scientists.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: I don't give a damn about top scientists or the scientific establishment at all. I don't care what they think. All I care about is saying what I have to say, and I will say it when I have to say it, in whatever way I wish to say it. I don't give a flying damn about what anybody thinks about what I have to say; I've stopped caring about that a long time ago. What I care about is changing and transforming this planet that we're on, and I believe we have to introduce new thinking. And if it turns out that to be scientifically total garbage, I don't give a flying f***; it makes no difference to me.

The science has little credibility as the only way of saving the world; it's only one, very narrow, very limited way. And the medical model, as you well know, is full of so much b*** about what's right and what's wrong and what's the right psychological model and what's the right medical model, that we're so filled with stuff that people are looking for alternative ways of healing, and you know that.

[Pause]

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: Clearly, you know your stuff, there's no question about, and I would love to sit at your feet for a long time. It would be very useful and it would help me tremendously, and I have no question about that.

Narrator: We were witnesses of a new reality being born, like a second breath. Science say in Kabbalah, a unique opportunity, a chance of a breakthrough. What was it that made such a change? Was it the hours of Rav Michael Laitman, PhD's lectures; arguments and doubts; perhaps it was simply that the time has come.

Dr Jeffery Satinover: Indeed Kabbalah, it does have an awful lot to say.

Prof William Tiller: I don't hear anything; I don't see anything, but I feel.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: What you know is really amazing and I honor your teaching and your wisdom.

Dr Jeffrey Satinover: To the whole phenomenon of Kabbalah kind of emerging out of its concealment—and in a genuine form, as opposed to just fluff—I think is very fascinating, very valuable.

Prof William Tiller: All possible ways to awaken the people, and have them become, work on themselves, I think it's the way to go.

Dr Jeffrey Satinover: Because this is something that means a great deal to me and because I got a very positive impression of this meeting, I'm certainly happy to help in any way I can.

Fred Alan Wolf, PhD: I certainly can contribute ideas for the film and I'd be happy to work with you on it, sure, as long as there's life, and breath, and room within me; I'm willing to travel.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: There are these three dimensional pictures, like wallpapers. If you look at them, and you de-focus your eye, and you go into the picture and you find the three-dimensional picture.

Dr Jeffrey Satinover: And when you look at it at the beginning, it looks like just the jagged, random pattern, and then after a while you see a kind of flat 3-D image.

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: So these things. [Laughter in audience] What the wisdom of Kabbalah actually does is it helps you get that picture. It does not do anything new actually, It just focuses and aims all your attributes, everything in you in such a way that you begin to see into matter.

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Copyright © 2003-2026 Бней Барух – Ассоциация "Каббала Ла-Ам", Все права защищены