Question: There are students who only just finished the very first Education Center course and they’re delving deeper into the material. Toward the end of the first course, they learned that the group is the collection of points in the heart (i.e. people with desires for spirituality), and now you’re saying that the group is humanity as a whole, and that we have to go out and teach them. Can you elaborate on this?

Dr. Michael Laitman: When we study the breaking of the vessels, we learn that through the breaking, all the sparks, the tiny lights, entered all the Kelim (vessels). Afterwards, in our world, out of all these Kelim, only the Kelim that had stronger sparks were sorted out, surfaced, and remained on top.

As the light impacts our entire world, meaning all the souls, only those people in whom there are stronger sparks are waking up. They begin to correct themselves, starting with Adam HaRishon (i.e. the first known Kabbalist, who wrote the book The Angiel Raziel), Noah, and the others we learn about up until Abraham, with Abraham’s group that went out of Babylon.

Then those people in whom these sparks were big, stronger, burning, they rise up, even with a tiny touch of the general light that was illuminating on everyone. So they came out and from them came the people who are called the first Kabbalists, and they started sorting out and scrutinizing this Kli (vessel). That is what happened through history.

Other people came later, over other 1,000s of years. We have had almost 6,000 years now of sorting out of Kelim since the first Kabbalist, Adam HaRishon. Today, it is the year 5774 in the count. So for many years now the Kelim have been sorting out. What’s left is Kelim in which the Reshimot are very dormant. The light from above is not enough to wake them up. So for that there is a crisis from below, and then these Kelim wake up.

There are eras that precede our era, when people would wake up just from the light that illuminated on them from above. Now, we have come to the time that is called “the days of the Messiah,” i.e. the general correction of all the remaining ones. Thus, they awaken through the crisis, from an awakening which pushes them from below.

There is a difference in the method here, because if the souls were to react to the light that illuminated on them, they would then be drawn to the wisdom of Kabbalah, as we are (i.e. as it is for people with points in the heart, desires for spirituality)—to know Godliness, to know the Upper Force. What is important for them is what is beyond this life. The rest of the souls are not waking up because their sparks are inside the will to receive—they did not burst from within the desire outward. For them they awaken only out of troubles that impact the will to receive. It goes like this:

A person has a will to receive, and in the will to receive there’s a spark—either above, in the middle, or below. If the spark is above, then the surrounding light [Ohr Makif – OM in the above diagram] influences the spark. That is number 1 in the diagram. People who have spark number 1, they wake up and they want the wisdom of Kabbalah. These are the first Kabbalists, the ones who lived until our time, meaning from Adam—from years zero to 5774, more or less. Well, maybe not so much in recent years.

Then come us, i.e. those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah, number 2 in the diagram. Our spark is deeper into the will to receive, how do you desire.  We woke up after the first Kabbalists. We come from a different era.

The last ones, number 3 in the diagram, are the rest of humanity, the 7 billion, humanity. So they don’t wake up from the surrounding light that influences them. For them something else has been prepared—the crisis, the negative force, that affects them. That’s where we are.

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When our holy zeal and great desire for redemption are gone, and our natural, human and national desire to live honorably as a nation are no longer present; and when it is no longer possible to legitimately blow the Shofar (horn) of redemption, our enemies come to us and blow it in our ears, “reminding us of our purpose.” They force us to hear the sound of the Shofar by blowing it into our ears and giving us no rest, like Amalek, Hitler and others did, to wake us up to our redemption.

… This type of nationalism, meaning ‘the sorrows of the Jews’ is a whip, and it too is a form of redemption, namely, “sorrows all around us awaken us and unite us,” however, for this Shofar sound, there is no blessing.

The Writings of Rav Kook, Vol 1, Article “Shofarot” (“The Horns”)

Rav Kook tells us that if awakening comes from externality and not the internality of the system of creation, then it does not come on account of the correction of creation, but it is an awakening from above, where out of no choice, we are awakened as such, because we cannot awaken ourselves.

Therefore, what we will do, through all these blows that come to us through “in due time,” through all situations and external, unpleasant causes, all our actions are then not out of correction, but because we run away from blows, from a bad place to a place that’s “a little better.” Therefore, it is not considered as being correction, but that we are in that in the animate level, like animals escape from blows, from sorrows that come to them from nature, e.g. a brushfire, so it is with us.

However, correction needs to be at the human level, where a person arranges his own deficiency. Other than the deficiency for the purpose of creation, he needs to become equipped with yearning. Then, when he has deficiency and yearning for the correct state, Hafetz Hesed (delighting in mercy) and active bestowal to the others, if there are such inclinations that he gathered and united through all kinds of activities among all the friends, then these actions can be received as actions of MAN, of request, of efforts for correction.

However, actions that come via external blows, all kinds of unpleasant events, that is only escaping toward good from blows. It is not that one yearns for bestowal. Then, when we see that people gather and want to be together, help each other out, and collaborate. There is nothing to be proud of in such a situation. These actions are similar to animals escaping from bad, and there is no correction in that.

Therefore, in our educational program, we need to respond to what the people are used to, but the main thing is to continue running activities in the times when some blow isn’t the reason for the activities, where we can explain the matter of connection, urgency, what we attain by that, and to what state we elevate ourselves, because the whole correction is in stabilizing the desire, the yearning for bestowal, not in that it is urgent for our ego to escape from bad, but because we appreciate the quality of bestowal as something exalted and special, and work out of goodness. We thus need to feel that difference between those two tendencies, and try to work from the corporeal good, to the spiritual good, where nothing urges me in my life to add exertion, other than the revelation of the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love, and by that we come close to the act of bestowal.

Based on the “Preparation” part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson of June 20, 2014. It can be downloaded from the Kabbalah Media Archive.

What is the spiritual definition of “nation” and “Jew” and how do they not relate at all to the corporeal definitions of these terms? What is MAN? What is Hafetz Hesed? What is an act of bestowal? How can an act of bestowal be made, and what are the benefits of reaching bestowal instead of remaining in reception? Learn the answers to these questions and more by learning the fundamental principles of the wisdom of Kabbalah in the Free Kabbalah Course: 20 lessons that will transform your life in 10 weeks. Click the banner below to sign up…