We must not destroy anything within us.

Even the most negative attributes should remain.
We do not create anything new,
but only correct how we use
what already exists within us.

Question: Why were we created with ego in the first place, if we will eventually have to correct it?

We come to know the world by comparing opposites —hot vs. cold, black vs. white. We recognize one in relation to the other. If everything were white, we wouldn’t detect anything. Likewise, if everything were black, we wouldn’t detect anything, either.

Contrast is always necessary, the disparity between colors, sensations, and places. We sense the differences between things, but not each thing separately.

The Creator is love and bestowal. However, we will not be able to sense what bestowal is if we are not opposite to it. This is why we need the ego—“help made against him.” Being opposite from the Creator helps us know and sense the Creator.

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We live in the state of infinity, which is constant, and all changes take place in us

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Dr. Michael Laitman: Today we are undergoing a great crisis even in art because there is nothing we could express ourselves with. How can it be expressed? Through some breakdowns? Our state is dead-end. On our current level, we have nothing left to express.

We have to rise to the next degree. We simply “crawled” from our level to a certain degree, but we are not able to ascend to it. We came to a dead end in all areas of our lives: culture, education, family, economy, finance—everything, even science. We hit this next degree and can’t climb it because we do not see it.

It is especially apparent in art and culture. We have always bore witness to the creation of masterpieces. But today we have mass culture that cannot even be called “culture.”

Unfortunately, in the field of art, we no longer concern ourselves with lofty, valuable interpersonal relationships, with searching for the meaning of life; instead, we present through our mass “art” (be it print or media) only what serves bodily needs: food, sex, and family. Within this entire framework dwell our so-called works of art.

On one hand, it is certainly a pity that such events take place, but on the other, they show us the crisis from which the new state must emerge.

The new art will be completely different. It will be founded on the unity of people. Its role will be to tell us about attainment of the upper world, about a whole new range of sensations that will be revealed in the connection between us. Those will be sensations and relationships of a completely different scale, and from then on, these very sensations and relationships will be expressed through art, and therefore, through our culture.

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Dr. Michael Laitman: We are totally interconnected in a single world. No matter how many times we “play” in political strategies and other games, our connection only grows, showing greater interdependence of people, nations, countries, as well as our dependence on the environment.

In fact, we are in a closed sphere, which affects us all around through the principle of unity. However, our egoism is opposed to this; on the contrary, it divides us, literally tears us apart. Thus, today the antagonism between nature and our nature is manifested.

That is why nature leads us to integration by harsh methods. The whole history of the 20th century proves this.

Today, whether we like it or not, it is already impossible to play protectionism. A good connection is not a nice slogan, but an urgent necessity, stemming from all the studies, the facts. The world is integral; we are not. So, we need to change.

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Genesis, 41:1-44:17

This Week’s Torah Portion | December 14 – December 20, 2014 – Kislev 22 – Kislev 28, 5775

In A Nutshell

The portion, Miketz (At the End), begins with Pharaoh’s dream about seven healthy and well-fed looking cows coming up from the Nile, followed by seven meager and malnourished looking cows. In a second dream, Pharaoh sees seven plump and wholesome looking ears of grain, followed by seven ears that were thin and scorched, and the thin ears eat the plump ones.

None of Pharaoh’s counselors could solve his dreams. The chief cupbearer, who was saved, remembered Joseph and his gift for deciphering dreams. He took the opportunity and asked to bring Joseph out of prison. Joseph came and solved Pharaoh’s dream. He said that there would be seven years of wealth and abundance in Egypt, immediately followed by seven years of hunger, and that Pharaoh should prepare for them.

Joseph also suggested how Pharaoh should prepare for them. Pharaoh appointed Joseph in charge, second only to the king, so he would set up the warehouses.

Indeed, the seven plentiful years were followed by seven years of famine, and the entire nation turned to Joseph to relieve their hunger and help them through it. Everyone, including Jacob’s sons, who were in the land of Israel, came to Egypt due to the hunger.

Jacob’s sons came to Joseph and did not recognize their own brother. At first, Joseph thought they were spies. Afterward, he sent Simeon to prison and said to his brothers, go back, but without Simeon. Joseph hid a goblet in Benjamin’s belongings and declared that if the thief who stole the goblet is caught, he will be put to death, and everyone will be punished.

The brothers returned to Jacob and told him of Joseph’s request that their brother Benjamin should go down to Egypt with them. Initially, Jacob refused to send Benjamin back to Pharaoh because he has already lost Joseph and Simeon, but he finally agreed to let him go.

The portion describes the different predicaments that Joseph puts his brothers through, causing them to separate, but the brothers reinforce their unity.

The portion ends with everyone being in Egypt, Benjamin is accused of stealing the goblet, and Joseph decides to keep him as a slave.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

These stories represent different states that we must go through as we advance in the correction of our souls. The Torah tells us how we must perform the correction.

There is no need to correct our bodies because they are part of the animal kingdom and exist as do all other animals. Our souls, however, we must beget out of the current state, and this portion narrates how we should approach the correction and achieve the birth of our souls.

It is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice.” In other words, our foundation is the evil inclination, our ego. When we recognize the ego and begin to work with it, we experience first hand the entire process the Torah describes.

The previous portions dealt with the point in the heart that awakens and develops in a person. This portion deals with how that development takes place. We all come from a broken Kli (vessel), which must be corrected, connected. This is the correction by which we achieve the rule, “love your neighbor as yourself; it is the great rule of the Torah,”^[1] inferring the connection of all of us into a single Kli, when all the people are as one.

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