Question: I wanted to ask a question that a student from the Education Center is asking in relation to the sketch you made with the different phases, 1, 2, 3.

Dr. Michael Laitman: They are not stages, they are types of people, 1, 2, 3.

• In number 1, the spark in them is either on top, so a person discovers that he is attracted to spirituality.
• In number 2, the spark is the one we have, so we only woke up recently to the wisdom of Kabbalah, say in the last 100 years.
• There are people that we can see are not waking up. Those are number 3. They just won’t wake up, so we call them the rest of humanity. They have no questions, other than how to have a better life, better health, family, vacationing, business, all within the framework of this world, from birth to death, only wanting to satisfy those desires. Some people go beyond all that.

Question: What the student is asking is: Stage number 2, where the point in the heart is evoked, maybe it is through all the suffering…

Dr. Laitman: It’s all together.

Question: She is asking whether in number 3, they will have to undergo a catastrophe in order for that point in the heart to awaken in them?

Dr. Laitman: If we, through integral education, cannot wake them up, perhaps because we will not make sufficient efforts for it and perhaps for other reasons, then the world will undergo great suffering. Moreover, this suffering will be inflicted on the people who had to give this world the right direction to draw it to the surrounding light. If we don’t do it, the world will start suffering, and we will suffer more than the rest of the world. We are the ones who have to draw it to the light and we have enough power and means to do that.

This Q&A is based on the Special Q&A Session with Dr. Michael Laitman in Preparation for the ONE Convention, which took place on Sunday, June 16. Watch the whole video & stay up-to-date with ONE Convention preparation materials here »

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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We have been with you for many years now, some for a great many years, and we’ve been studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. When people come to study Kabbalah, they learn about Sefirot worlds, Partzufim, Aviut, Zakut, Zivug de Haka’a, lights, Kelim [vessels]—to learn the special mechanics between the light and the desire. It is unknown where this light is. It is “out there.”

Where is the desire? It’s also… we don’t actually attribute it to us. It turns out that we’re learning something abstract, but we do learn it. We have the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” and “The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” which is what we have been learning, without any seeming connection to ourselves.

Afterwards, we started studying the essays of Rabash. He also didn’t write them before he had new students, in the emergence of a new era. When I brought him students, then instead of the five veteran students who studied even with Baal HaSulam, all of a sudden there were new guys, 25-30 years old. So he started writing these social articles. Why? It was because he saw that here you could actually implement the wisdom of Kabbalah, but in a small group, a small society. That’s why he wrote these articles, such as “They Helped Every One His Friend,” how we should connect in a group, etc.

As we advanced, the next stage came. In the next stage we started circulating a little bit, disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah outside the group, and people started coming in. Many people came, learned a little, left, came again, left again, and time passed.

Then came an even more special time, when the world got into a crisis. The crisis was around long before 2008, but no one would talk about it. Experts saw that there was a crisis a few years back, but it was forbidden to talk about it.

Once the world was in global crisis, not just an economic crisis where the stock market fell or some bank collapsed, but the world started viewing itself as being connected in a bad system, where they are trying to do something together, unified, like the united Europe, and so on. We have no choice; we depend on each other, and it is not up to us. However, the laws by which we are connected to each other are egoistic, so instead of using each other correctly, we spoil it. Previously it was not like that.

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The Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center is happy to announce the start of the new EC Fundamentals semester with a brand new curriculum starting on Wednesday, June 11.

Whether you wish to share the wisdom of Kabbalah with friends or family, or you wish to get deeper into Kabbalah’s fundamental principles, the upcoming semester will have something for everyone as EC Instructors cover the following new modules and topics in this introductory course:

Module 1: Kabbalah Basics
1) How Changing the Way You Define ‘Kabbalah,’ ‘Creator’ and ‘Creation’ Changes the Way You Look at Your Whole Life
2) Who Are You? Where Did You Come From? Where Are You Headed?
3) History of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Module 2: What Is Reality?
4) Do You Live in a Reality or in a Dream?
5) Why Your Intention Is the Only Place Where Reality Transforms

Module 3: The Language of Kabbalah
6) What Is the Law of Root and Branch? What Does it Mean to Attain Spirituality?
7) The Unique Learning Approach in Kabbalah: Learning Through Desire, Not Intellect
8) What are the Optimal Kabbalistic Sources for Our Generation to Progress Spiritually in the Fastest and Happiest Way?

Module 4: Free Choice
9) How You Are Completely Controlled in Every Aspect of Your Life and Why You Still Think You Can Achieve Freedom
10) How to Build Your Own Social Environmental Influence that Lets You Discover Your Freedom

Module 5: Introduction to the Sefirot, Partzufim, Worlds and Souls
11) What are the Four Phases of Direct Light?
12) What Is the Soul? What Is the Meaning of the Sin of the Tree of Knowledge & How Is Where You Are Today Related to It?

Module 6: Kabbalah in Society
13) Overview of Lessons Until Now and Q&A
14) What Is Love? Can You Love the Creator Without Loving Other People?
15) What Is Good and Evil?

Module 7: The Inner Work of Attaining Spirituality
16) How to Discover the Single Force of Love Acting in Every Life Situation
17) The Secret Formula for Attaining the Deepest Form of Independence: Independence from What You Currently Think You Are

Module 8: Methodology of the Study of Kabbalah
18) Fundamentals of the Methodology Part 1: How to Work with the Means of Spiritual Attainment in Order to Attain the Spiritual Goal
19) Fundamentals of the Methodology Part 2: How to Work with the Means of Spiritual Attainment in Order to Attain the Spiritual Goal
20) The Benefits of Learning Kabbalah You Should Start Seeing Even Before You’ve Attained its Goal

The course is free of charge and all students gain access to the following: 

• 20 lessons that will transform your life in 10 weeks (2 classes per week)
• Live interaction with instructors during lessons where students can ask questions.
• Free, optional access to a web-based community where students can post questions that will be answered by instructors and moderators.
• Free PDF versions of all course materials
• A lesson archive where all lessons are posted if you miss a live class or wish to review.
• Student discounts on special book packages at the Kabbalah Bookstore

Most importantly, this course and the whole of the wisdom of Kabbalah is there for anyone who has asked the question “What is the meaning of life?” and been unable to find an answer. We look forward to exploring this wisdom with anyone who is still asking this question. Just sign up for the course, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on June 11.

Sign Up for the Free Kabbalah Course Here »

Got questions about the upcoming ONE Convention? Well, join the club! You’re not the only one trying to figure out your approach to the biggest spiritual event taking place in North America this year.

In order to answers your questions, Dr. Michael Laitman will be teaching a special lesson for you on Sunday, June 15, 2014. Please join us for the first part of his lesson starting at 8:00 PM EDT (New York time).

• When? Sunday, June 15, 2014 – 8:00 PM EDT (New York time)
• Where? Kabbalah TV – Kab.tv
• What? A special Q&A session with Dr. Laitman in preparation toward the ONE Convention this August 8-10, 2014 in New Jersey.

Ask Your Question about the ONE Convention Here »