November 22, 2024
Archive for March, 2014
March 17, 2014 at 9:00 am · Filed under Articles, Meaning of Life
There is a state inherent in the process of human development in which we feel bad without achieving the goal of creation, which is to attain adhesion with Nature’s quality of love and bestowal, even in our normal life on earth, as if it is not related to the higher goal. However, we exist in the material world to rise out of it and reach the goal of creation.
Therefore, a situation in human development comes about when we suddenly start feeling like we can no longer continue along the same lines of progress, and it is necessary to find the meaning of life. From this moment, the person starts searching for the meaning of life.
One feels a lack of fulfillment in one’s earthly desires, which cannot be satisfied with anything, and thus starts crying, “What is the meaning of my life?” One loses the taste of existence so much that one does not understand why one needs this life if he does not realize its purpose.
The person needs to realize the method of Kabbalah to achieve the purpose of creation, to attain contact with the force of bestowal and love. Humanity’s entire life aspires to this single goal, and Kabbalah lets a person discover this goal faster than one who will be led to it via all kinds of blows. [Source: Dr. Michael Laitman, “Life Is Good if You Know its Meaning”]
Who Am I? Why Do I Exist?
The wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about my ascent to a higher dimension. What does “ascent” mean? The Kabbalists say: “You exist in a higher dimension but do not feel it. You have to reveal yourself as existing in it.”
I exist in two dimensions. One is at the level of “this world,” where I reside in my physical body. The other is in a higher dimension, where I exist in my spiritual body. This spiritual body, a desire to bestow, is concealed from me, and I know nothing about it. Opposite it, there is the upper force called “the Creator.”
Nature is opposite my corporeal body. In my current perception of reality, I feel bad, which pushes me to uncover the higher reality, my existence as “the soul and the Creator” instead of “the body and nature.”
Kabbalists say that I have to discover the higher dimension because that is where life’s governing forces reach me, and I along with my entire future depend on them. If I ascend, then I find out why I exist, who I am, and what happens to me. I reveal the meaning of my life and how to change everything for the better. These questions push me toward the higher dimension. [Source: Dr. Michael Laitman, “Find Yourself in the Upper Dimension”]
To learn more about how Kabbalah was created solely to answer questions about the meaning of life, to reach contact with the quality of love and bestowal, and not for any other purposes that it’s been commonly misconceived as being connected to, it is recommended to take the Free Kabbalah Course. The reason is that many of the concepts and terms we have heard a lot about in our upbringing have completely different definitions in Kabbalah, and it takes a while to process them properly. Therefore, if you’re interested in this topic, then we recommend taking the free course and start learning about the world around you and inside you anew. Click the banner below to sign up for the free course …
March 15, 2014 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Torah Portion
Leviticus, 9:1-11:47
This Week’s Torah Portion | March 9 – March 15, 2014 – Adar II 7 – Adar II 13, 5774
In A Nutshell
The portion, Shmini (On the Eighth Day), deals with the events of the eighth day after the seven days of filling.[1] This is the inauguration day of the tabernacle. Aaron and his sons offer special sacrifices on this day. Moses and Aaron go to bless the people, and finally, the Creator appears to the people of Israel.
Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu sin with offering on a foreign fire, and the fire consumes them. Aaron and the remaining sons receive special instructions how to conduct themselves in the situation, and among others orders, they are forbidden to mourn.
The portion tells of another misunderstanding between Moses and Aaron and his sons concerning eating the sin offering. The portion ends with the rules concerning forbidden food, detailing the animals, beasts, poultry, and fish that are forbidden to eat. Rules of Tuma’a (impurity) and Taharah (purity) are also briefly explained.
Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman
The portion mentions many details concerning the tabernacle and offering sacrifices, what is forbidden and what is permitted. How should we understand it internally?
We need to examine which of our 613 desires we need to correct, and how. It was said about man, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice,”[2] so we may correct our evil inclination—the egoistic desires—in which we think only of ourselves and cannot perform a single act of giving and love of others.
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March 15, 2014 at 9:00 pm · Filed under Definitions
Inauguration of the Tabernacle
“Inauguration of the tabernacle” is the point from which we can bring offerings, meaning correct our desires in actual fact. In that state we can correct each desire by making it similar to bestowal, love of others, the Creator. We become similar to the Creator in that desire, understand the wholeness of creation, the eternity of creation. We ourselves become as the Creator, as it is written, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea, 14:2). This is what we should achieve, and these actions bring about great joy.
So it is not a coincidence that the revelation of the Creator is mentioned on the same day as the inauguration of the tabernacle. But what does revealing the Creator mean?
Upon beginning to perform the work of the tabernacle we discover the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form. As we perform the same acts as the Creator, the Creator “dresses” in us, and we begin to feel that our actions create our situation, our place, and our status. One who performs acts of bestowal and love, correcting one’s evil inclination, becomes like the Creator. This is why such a person is called “man” (Adam), from the word Domeh (similar) to the Creator.
It is said that Nadav and Avihu sacrificed with foreign fire. What does it mean?
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March 13, 2014 at 10:29 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
How the Wisdom of Kabbalah Originated
Let us, for a moment, journey back through time to ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. Roughly 4,000 years ago, situated within a vast and fertile stretch of land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what today is Iraq, a city-state called Babel played host to a flourishing civilization. Bustling with life and action, it was the trade center of the entire ancient world.
Babel, the heart of the dynamic civilization we now call “ancient Babylon,” was a melting pot and the ideal setting for numerous belief systems and teachings. Its people practiced idol worship of many kinds, and among the most revered people in Babel was a priest named Abraham, who was a local authority in the practice of idol worship, as was his father, Terah.
However, Abraham had a very special quality: he was unusually perceptive, and like all great scientists, he had a zeal for the truth. The great 12th century scholar, Maimonides (also known as the RAMBAM), described Abraham’s determination and efforts to discover life’s truths in his book, The Mighty Hand:
“Ever since this firm one was weaned, he began to wonder. …He began to ponder day and night, and he wondered how it was possible for this wheel to always turn without a driver? Who is turning it, for it cannot turn itself? And he had neither a teacher nor a tutor. Instead, he was wedged in Ur of the Chaldeans among illiterate idol worshippers, with his mother and father and all the people worshipping stars, and he—worshipping with them.”
In his quest, Abraham learned what lies beyond the borderland that William Crookes described so many centuries later. He found the unity, the oneness of reality that Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Einstein, Leibniz, and others intuitively sensed. In Maimonides’ words, “He [Abraham] attained the path of truth and understood the line of justice with his own correct wisdom. And he knew that there is one God there who leads…, and that He has created everything, and that in all that there is, there is no other God but Him.”
(To interpret these excerpts correctly, it is important to note that when Kabbalists speak of God, they do not mean it in the religious sense of the word—as an almighty being that you must worship, please, and appease, which in return rewards devout believers with health, wealth, long life, or all of the above. Instead, Kabbalists identify God with Nature, the whole of Nature. The most unequivocal statements on the meaning of the term, “God,” were made by Baal HaSulam, whose writings explain that God is synonymous with Nature.
For example, in his essay, “The Peace,” he writes, “To avoid having to use both tongues from now on—Nature and a Supervisor—between which, as I have shown, there is no difference…it is best for us to…accept the words of the Kabbalists that HaTeva (The Nature) is the same…as Elokim (God). Then, I will be able to call the laws of God ‘Nature’s commandments,’ and vice-versa, for they are one and the same, and we need not discuss it further.”)
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March 12, 2014 at 11:06 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
Why You Must Understand How Global Interdependence & Global Crisis Interconnect
When the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression first broke out in August of 2008, many politicians and financiers in key positions emphasized the need for unity and cooperation. They voiced a need to restrain the egocentric frame of mind dominating Wall Street and expressed a fear of separatist and protectionist tendencies. Headlines such as The Economic Times’ “World Leaders Seek Unity to fight financial Crisis” prevailed in newspapers all over the world, signaling a general willingness to unite and cooperate in the face of economic uncertainty.
At first glance, this spirit is understandable, if not called for. After all, the world’s financiers knew that their institutions were linked together so tightly that if one failed, the others would follow, and politicians were warned that if they did not bail out the banks in their countries, their own economies would collapse, precipitating a domino effect that would bring down the entire global economy.
However, in the face of a crisis, it is natural to do the opposite of uniting: close yourself off and protect what is yours. This seems like a safer route than joining forces with “foreigners,” especially when those foreigners may be regarded as culprits or, at least, contributors to the making of your plight.
For politicians, it would seem more natural to put their own countries first, as with the British Corn Laws tariffs of the 19th century and President Hoover’s 1933 “Buy American” Act. Yet, as the delicate balance of cooperation and self-interest teeters back and forth, we survey the destruction wrought by the financial crisis and find that the majority of voices champion unity and denounce protectionism and separation. Why is this so?
If we consider this question from a purely economic or psychological aspect, we will not arrive at a conclusive answer. However, when we view it from the perspective of the science of Kabbalah, we will see that the forces involved in international relations, and indeed in any relations, are forces of integration, not of isolation. They are far more powerful than any rational or irrational decision-making process, and determine our moves “behind the scenes.”
On the international level, these forces determine global trade, politics, treaties, conflicts, and ecology. On the national level, they determine the trends in education, welfare policy, media, and local economy. On the personal level, they determine our relationships with our families, and on the deepest level of existence, they determine evolution—ours and that of every other element in Nature.
To understand the forces and elements that create reality and stir it in its course, we must first come to know their origins and their final destinations. Otherwise, trying to understand reality is like trying to grasp the inner workings of a car—its engine, the engine’s connection to the gear, the way the gear shifts the power to the wheels, and so on—without explaining that a car is a machine built to transport people safely, comfortably, and quickly from place A to place B. Without explaining the car’s purpose, what good is any discussion of its structure?
The Secret to Reality Even Cutting Edge Physicists Haven’t Found Yet
Like science, Kabbalah researches the inner workings of reality. But unlike science, which observes phenomena and offers theories as to their end goal, Kabbalah sees the goal first and from there explains the structure. That goal, as explained by Kabbalah, is for every person in the world to discover the single, fundamental force that creates and governs all of life. In other words, the goal of Kabbalah is for every person to discover life’s creative force, obtain it, and reap all the benefits this discovery implies.
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