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November 2, 2024

Who Are You A Slave To?

From Today’s Daily Lesson:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntTyAiiKkW0]

Question: Martin from Czechoslovakia is writing, “I don’t understand why someone would want to reach such a state. Why would I want to nullify myself before someone I don’t know, and who sends me suffering?” He adds another sentence, “If I’m a thief, then at least I can be proud of that, but who wants to be a slave?”

Answer by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: I agree with him. I have no problem in saying that he’s right. “A person’s pride will humiliate him.” The matter is in defining what is it to be a “slave,” what is it to be a “man,” what is it to be a “woman,” what is it to be a “thief,” etc. It’s a matter of definition.

“Slave” means knowing that the will to receive now controls me. That it controls, and not that I’m the landlord. I firstly differentiate myself from my ego, and see that this ego controls me. I want to see like this or like that, and my nature comes and makes of me whatever it wants. I see how this occurs in humanity: We want to try, to be in something different, but we’re incapable. Our nature conquers us and makes of us everything.

So I’m a slave to my nature, right? A slave. So he can already stop thinking that he’s a man, and that he’s free. He’s not free, but he’s blind to that. He doesn’t see how he’s completely addicted to his nature, and that he’s a beast carrying out commands. That’s one thing.

The other thing is that if he were to know that this slavery he’s currently in ruins him and eats away at him, then that would end his life without any compensation. If he’d look at it properly, then he’d understand that there might be another state, that it’s possible to exit it. It doesn’t matter what state he’d enter into, but the main thing is that he’d exit his current state. Why wouldn’t it matter what state he’d enter into? We hate the state of bestowal a lot, but I need to hate my current state more than the state of bestowal, so how do I do it?

So he’s right. I don’t know who the second landlord is. I only have the opportunity to sell myself to this second one, and thus I’d disconnect from the first. So I need to choose between them – that’s my choice. If by doing so, I don’t feel myself as turning into a slave of the second essence, of bestowal, then it’s not a decision.

Decision – I’m free in that I can choose between the two. Suddenly one identifies oneself within a very small range, a decision of whom to belong to, and thus begins his work. It’s a very internal, psychological thing that a person goes through, and he begins understanding that he’s sold to one or to the other. He begins building himself in that. There are many things here. That’s already the middle line.

Taken from today’s daily lesson, on Baal HaSulam’s 18th Igeret (Letter) from 1926.

Today’s Daily Lesson Featured:

…with commentary by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, as well as questions by students of Bnei Baruch and live viewers on Kabbalah TV.

The lessons will be continuing daily at 8:10pm until 11pm EST, Saturdays through Thursdays, on Kabbalah TV, and will be available for free download in the Kabbalah Media Archive.

Q&A Celebration
Kabbalah LIVE Video Q&A Celebration

Wednesday, September 02.09 – 8:00pm EST (U.S.)

  

Do Your Good Or Bad Deeds Mean Anything?

From Today’s Daily Lesson:

Question: Is there any meaning to my actions in life, whether or not I’m good or bad to people, or otherwise?

Answer by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: In our world, you need to act like everyone, with that same nice look on your face and no more than that. All the corrections you want to perform, that you can do for the world, for yourself and for the Creator, it doesn’t matter how you aim them, they can be only by way of the Light that reforms. That Light acts on what is corrupted, and the only thing that is corrupted is the soul. The Light that corrects the soul arranges all parts in such a way that you act differently, even in corporeality, because you still don’t know what it means to act correctly in corporeality.

If you had seen Kabbalists, you would identify nothing special in them. You see people who run to hospitals, who help out, who cry “save the animals,” “save the trees, the green, the water”… people who care about humanity, ecology, about everything. They seem like they’re the most corrected people of all, right? They setup all kinds of parades and demonstrations. So are they all Kabbalists? You wouldn’t see any Kabbalists among them. None. Nor would you see a Kabbalist in anyone who sits on mountain peaks, meditating or doing special prayers…

You can only perform a correction in what is broken. What is broken is your soul, only that and nothing else. That’s what you should worry about correcting – it is incorporated with all the other souls. By including your corrected soul among all the other souls, you correct everything. You have no other possibility of bringing anything good to everyone, and through that, bringing the world to correction.

All our actions with our arms, legs, mouth, what we do in this world, will not benefit everyone. We can already see that throughout history, only corruption has come from that approach, not correction. You can pray from morning to evening, and do all kinds of deeds, it doesn’t matter what, but all that won’t bring about correction. Correction only comes through the Light that reforms.

The whole of creation is “I created the evil inclination,” and the whole correction is “I created the Torah, a spice.” What is “the Torah, a spice”? It is “the Light that comes will reform.” Who does that Light come to? It comes to whoever feels oneself as being within the evil inclination. That’s all, it’s very simple. In the meantime, you feel yourself as being righteous…

Taken from today’s daily lesson, on Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot” (at 20:00).

Today’s Daily Lesson Featured:

…with commentary by Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, as well as questions by students of Bnei Baruch and live viewers on Kabbalah TV.

The lessons will be continuing daily at 8:10pm until 11pm EST, Saturdays through Thursdays, on Kabbalah TV, and will be available for free download in the Kabbalah Media Archive.

Q&A Celebration
Kabbalah LIVE Video Q&A Celebration

Wednesday, September 02.09 – 8:00pm EST (U.S.)

  





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