All’s Well that Ends Well
Article in Kabbalah Today issue #3
If you read genuine Kabbalistic texts attentively, you will discover that according to Kabbalah, there isn’t any ‘bad’ in creation whatsoever, it’s just that we, the fruit of creation, have not yet ripened. more…
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The Omnipotent Wizard Who Could Not Be Alone 19:54
A Kabbalistic story about a wizard who created life, and the person who can only be satisfied by finding the wizard who created him.
Story by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD;
Puppet show by the Bnei Baruch Theater Dept.
Click here for the audio version of this story
Click here to read the story
Click here to download the video file
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Kabbalah for idiots, genius’s, the poor, the tired…
A person can be old or young, have all sorts of qualities, be smart or foolish - this is not important. His soul operates beyond all these properties and its functioning does not depend on them. A person may not have a sharp mind, and still be a great Kabbalist, yet he also can be very successful, clever, but at the same time be an angry and rude person. more…
Happiness
Happiness does not always mean some event that puts a big smile on our faces. It means moving toward goals that help us live the kind of life we think is in our best interest at the time. So that is the sense in which our actions are always aimed at making ourselves “happy.” (p. 35, “The Pleasure and Pain Principle” from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)
Do You Really Want Spirituality?
A famous story about the Ari’s students demonstrates just how ripe the Ari believed the time was. One day he said to his students, “If we all go to Jerusalem [they were in a different city then], we will bring the end of correction, and reach the highest degree. We need only do it together.” Alas, most people couldn’t come: one had a sick child, another couldn’t come to terms with his wife and she wouldn’t let him go, and another just didn’t have the energy for such a long walk. They stayed in their town, and the end of correction stayed away from us. But the Ari believed that it was possible. (p. 55, “Debunking the Myths” from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)
Self-Examination
Kabbalists explain that all creations are sensing beings. In other words, all we have are our feelings and emotions. This is because the purpose of creation is for us to feel pleasure. Even our rationale exists only to justify, to rationalize our feelings. Therefore, if you want to study yourself, examine your emotions. See what gives you pleasure - you’ll be surprised, and not always pleasantly. (p. 160, “Kabbalah and Your Life” from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)
Body and Soul
It’s not the body that needs correction. It’s the soul. (p. 181, “Praying with Results” from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)
Altruism - Rising to the Challenge
In all this havoc of egoism, we are forgetting the roots of creation. We are one soul. It doesn’t matter how many innocent people die; we will still be one soul.
In writings that were given the name “The Last Generation,” Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag wrote that if we don’t change the course of events, we will experience a third and a fourth world war. The relics, he wrote, will still have to do the job and correct our egos. We must realize that there is a crisis, and we must deal with it in the only way possible: through rising to the level of nature’s altruism. (p. 245, “The Malady: Trapped in the Ego Cage” from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah)
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Listen to the file by clicking on the Flash player’s button below:
Tzadik ke Tamar Ifrach
a song by Baal HaSulam
1. Download Instrumental Version
2. Download Electronic Version performed by the band “Bnei Baruch”
3. Download Instrumental Version performed by the band “Bnei Baruch”
4. Download Vocal Version performed by Rabbi Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (Rabash)
Basically, there are two states in every song. One is the state of the Kli, the soul on which man has worked, corrected, and then attained delight and excitement; and he now sings from this delight.
This is why in Tzadik ke Tamar Ifrach there is a sensation of the previous state when one lacked fulfillment, suffered, and searched, and that he reached the state in which he knows that this is how it was supposed to be, because a righteous man eventually comes to justify the entire process through which he passed.
Thus, the rapture that comes from before being in the outermost oppositeness of sensing himself very distant from the Creator, and now entering the palace of the King, the Upper World, bursts out in his present state in the form of a melody—from within the sensation that fills him.
This sensation encompasses two opposite states: his previous, most distanced state that seems hopelessly far from the Upper, and the present state when he has reached adhesion with Him.
In essence, this song is special because what one is grateful for is not his state. Rather, one is grateful for being able to be righteous, meaning for being able to justify the Creator in all that happened to him on his path. Now he sees the causality and the pressing necessity of all the states that he passed. He understands that all of them were arranged for him from above so that he can attain this elevated state.
—Rav Michael Laitman, PhD in the film “Melodies of the Upper Worlds - Part 1.” See it at Kabbalah TV in the “Films” category. You may also download the film’s transcript here.
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Following are some quotes of prominent Kabbalists to help inspire you during your day or before you go to sleep. Read them one at a time, then contemplate. There is no rush; these quotes work best when you think about them for a while.
“All of man’s engagements are guided by a single, intrinsic premise, and the internality dresses within all people. It is what they referred to as “Nature,” whose numeric count is the same as Elokim (God). And this is the truth that the Creator concealed from the philosophers.”
—Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lutzato (The Ramchal) (1707—1747), The Book of the War of Moses
“Man’s future will indeed come, in which he will evolve to such a sound spiritual state, that not only will every profession not hide another, but every science and every sentiment will reflect the entire scientific sea and the entire emotional depth, as this matter really is in the actual reality.”
—Rabbi Abraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook (1865—1935), Orot Kodesh, A (Holy Lights, A)
“One who feels within, after several attempts, that one’s soul within is in peace only when engaging in the secrets of Torah, should know for certain that this is what one has been made for. Let no preventions—corporeal or spiritual—stop one from running to the source of one’s life and true wholeness.”
—Rabbi Abraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook (1865—1935), Orot Kodesh, A (Holy Lights, A)
“The Torah was given to learn and to teach so that all will know the Lord, from least to greatest. We also find many books of Kabbalists alerting of the importance of the study of the wisdom that everyone must learn.”
—Rabbi Yitzhak Ben Tzvi Ashkenazi (???—1807), The Purity of Sanctity
“Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’”
—Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) (1884—1954), The Study of the Ten Sefirot
“Even when one does not have the vessels, when one engages in this wisdom, mentioning the names of the Lights and the vessels related to one’s soul, they immediately shine upon us to a certain measure. However, they shine for him without clothing the interior of his soul for lack of the able vessels to receive them. Despite that, the illumination one receives time after time during the engagement draws upon one grace from above, imparting one with abundance of sanctity and purity, which bring one much closer to reaching perfection.”
—Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) (1884—1954), The Study of the Ten Sefirot
pp. 193-4, part “Kabbalah and Your Life,” chapter “Correction Is a Matter of Intention” in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD with Collin Canright.
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The Law of Equivalence of Form 04:09
The law of equivalence of form operates to bring every part of nature to complete balance.
Taken from the “Kabbalah Revealed” Kabbalah introductory series.
Click here to view the video at Kabbalah TV
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Dope ‘em or answer them
article by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD
Is your child easily distracted, restless, eruptive, or even violent? Before you try chemicals to treat the symptoms, try answering the question that causes it — what is the purpose of this life? The results can be truly astonishing.
more…
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Baal HaSulam
Baal HaSulam:
“Do not be surprised if I mix together the well-being of a particular collective with the well-being of the whole world, because indeed we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society. Meaning, because each person in the world sucks his life’s marrow and his livelihood from all the people in the world, he is coerced to serve and care for the well-being of the whole world.” (from the article “Peace in the World“)
Commentary by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD:
That was written seventy years ago. Do you understand what Baal HaSulam felt back then, about the world he was living in? We didn’t have the Internet, and the kinds of media and transportation that we have today; who knew about all of that?
No one dreamt about it back then. We don’t have a single book from that time that speaks in those terms. But he wrote that we can already see the whole world is one small village, with globalization and everything. For him, it was a fact; not something that was yet to come, but that definitely had come.
All the Kabbalists earlier knew it had to come, but for him it was being realized. Because of this, he became coerced to care for the whole world, because the whole world appears to us as one system.
Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, from the December 2005 World Peace Lectures, lesson #6, 22-12-07. wmv video | mp3 audio | ms word transcript | about the December 2005 World Peace lectures
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What is Kabbalah? 03:06
“Visit Bnei Baruch’s “What is Kabbalah?” page
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And this task was said about Elijah the Prophet, because the disclosure of the secrets is always referred to as the disclosure of Elijah, as they have said, “let it rest until Elijah comes,” and also, “the Tishbi will answer the questions and problems.”
For this reason they said that three days (a known intimation) prior to the coming of the Messiah, Elijah would walk upon the hilltops and will blow in a great horn etc. You must understand these intimations, that that the horn is only the issue of the disclosure of the wisdom of the hidden in great masses, which is a necessary precondition that must be met prior to the complete redemption.
And the books that have already been revealed in this wisdom will testify to it, that matters of the greatest importance have been spread out like a gown for all to see, which is a true testimony that we are already at the threshold of redemption, and that the voice of the great horn has already been heard, though not in the distance because it still sounds very softly.
But indeed, any greatness requires prior smallness, and there is no great voice if it is not preceded by a soft sound, for this is the way of the horn, that it progressively grows.
Baal HaSulam, in his article “Messiah’s Horn,” taken from his book Ohr Bahir (Bright Light).
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