Ask the Kabbalist (May 29, 2008)
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Bold: Questions/Comments
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Regular: Commentaries of Michael Laitman, PhD
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lowercase italics: emphasized words
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Capitalized Italics: Transliteration from Hebrew
Question: Is there a spiritual root to soccer? What happens when two teams pray for victory? Who does the Creator help? What makes so many people gather in one place just to watch two teams of people chasing a ball?
Michael Laitman: A person evolves through games. We even see this in nature. Look at plants. How do plants know how they have to evolve? In the inner programming of the plant or of our body or a person’s mental or internal development, the transition from a lower degree to a higher degree, from a lesser understanding to a greater understanding, has in it an element of a game.
Just like kids when they play, through the game, they get smarter. They work out problems, solve them, and thus, learn. To accelerate our development, there is within us an inclination for playing for competition, “the envy of the writers increases wisdom.” Although we don’t see much wisdom stemming from playing soccer, the drive within us expresses much of nature.
That is why people are attracted to it. It is a large need for playing, for competition, for connecting these things together. It is also the game, the bonding, the competition and there is an element of luck here. People do all kinds of things around it and make their lives prettier. They have all kinds of symbols, banners, and logos that give people the sensation that they are realizing the inner drive that nature gave them actually in order to develop.
The drive to play; the jealousy and the drive to play are given by nature. It causes us to develop and that’s why it’s in us. Instead of using it more effectively and more seriously, in the meantime, we are using it in this way, but it stems from a natural quality.
Moderator: When two teams pray for victory, who wins?
M. Laitman: According to Kabbalah, if we examine it from Above, the whole calculation is so complicated. I cannot talk about it. First of all, it is forbidden to calculate it, and Kabbalah doesn’t deal with this nonsense. However, it is very difficult. What they do with their corporeal selves, let them do it. The winner is determined according to the development of the souls, towards the end of correction; since we know what kind of souls there are on soccer fields and their fans, from both sides, these things are still very broad. They are not so focused so that you could really pinpoint it and make a sharp calculation. Therefore, it is very difficult to know.
Question: For the last two years or so, I have been studying Kabbalah via the television. Despite the physical distance, I feel as if you are personally teaching me because I always feel as if today’s lesson fits what I should be learning. What does that mean?
M. Laitman: First of all, thank you very much. It is very nice to hear that you feel like you are learning with me, and that I am only with you personally. Actually, that is how everyone should feel. During the lesson, I try to feel the whole audience—those that are in front of me which are up to three hundred men and all over the world, especially, in Israel—but also overseas, people who come and learn. There are hundreds of thousands of students and, generally, I try to be as broad as possible, to be as close as possible to the group. I try to give this group the material that is needed.
Thus the sensation, of everyone being together, governs and in that, everyone feels unique. It is like a contradiction in terms: the more we unite, the more we feel that we are unique, that we are being spoken to personally. That is how spirituality is built; one doesn’t relinquish the other and the bonding, the unification doesn’t revoke the personality.
Question: Soon, there will be a special experiment in Switzerland where thousands of physicists from all over the world will try to reconstruct what happened immediately after the Big Bang through a very powerful particle accelerator. They are saying that it is the greatest scientific experiment in history; there was a big story about it in the weekend papers. The goal is to find the Divine particle, the particle that gives the mass to all the other particles and perhaps even discover new continents, new particles, and new dimensions. What can you say about that, as a Kabbalist?
M. Laitman: They will only be more confused because our substance appears to us in its development only because our ego is revealed and growing.
I can’t give a lesson right now about the perception of reality and how we affect reality even with our very thoughts and how our thoughts change reality, however, they will not discover the particle that created the universe. Because that particle has no mass, it is not a substance, it’s a spark and what grew around that spark was our ego.
Therefore, our ego, which clothes itself on that spark and constantly increases, is actually explained by us as the development of the universe for the past 15 billion years. How did this universe develop in the past 15 billion years? Who says it is so? We are built in such a way that within us, there is a sensation of time in our perception. We are built by time, space and motion, so that’s how we perceive reality.
This means that today, when we look at the universe, we approximate backwards as if it has been around for 15 billion years, and 15 billion years ago there was a bang, and from that all matters were dispersed. That is the picture we make within our imagination, within our perception of reality. It’s not the real picture that is happening outside of us; it is just a picture that we depict within.
They can do whatever they want with actions in physics, however, they will not understand anything because they have to connect it to the perception of reality. And, in the perception of reality, they get to the end, to a state where they cannot penetrate further because we have a problem with the perception of our five senses. They have to transcend the five senses and this is what they can’t do.
Only Kabbalah teaches us how to develop the sixth sense in us and see a reality beyond time, space and motion; a reality that is not bound by our physical senses. Because if we are talking about what preceded, then we have to exit from our five senses and see reality seemingly outside of us, objectively.
It is not from the sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, or from instruments that we built, which only expand the range of our perceptions. I need to transcend myself altogether; to exit from my body, see the universe and see everything that exists. I don’t know what I’ll see and totally objectively, regardless of me.
That is what Kabbalah enables you to do; it opens up the sixth sense to you and that sixth sense is called “the soul.” Through the soul, if you begin to feel these forms, you discover substance, a form clothed in substance, how it all develops, and it is entirely different from what they can discover. They can’t even touch it because they are working with their five senses. That is the whole of physics.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is the physics of the Upper World from which this energy and substance come; however, they are studying the physics of the lower world, our world, and they will not discover anything. Eventually, they will once again end up in a deadlock, and they will not know what’s beyond just like the rest of quantum physics. They are approaching something and see that, beyond it, there is no perception. And, from here on, there is an opening for the wisdom of Kabbalah.
Question: What is the spiritual meaning of blood types? What does it mean that certain blood types can be or cannot be donated to everyone?
M. Laitman: We have HaVaYaH (Lord) Yod (10th letter in Hebrew Alphabet, numeric value =10), Hey (5th letter in the Hebrew alphabet, numeric value = 5), Vav (6th letter in the Hebrew alphabet, numeric value = 6), Hey; it is the name of the Creator. Normally, we’re careful, we don’t write it explicitly and this name has no expression. We can express it with all kinds of signs, and we can express it with sounds, but it really is inexpressible.
The reason for this is because the Yod Hey Vav Hey is the four stages of development of matter from the Creator. The Creator is the source, the tip of the Yod, the beginning; however, the Yod Hey Vav Hey is the development of matter. The whole of creation is always divided into four parts; from the still to the vegetative to the animate to the speaking level, to man. In everything, you have four stages of development even in our world. That is why there are four blood types. It is true and that‘s where it comes from.
The word blood (Dam) in Hebrew, comes from the word, Domem (still). But in the vegetative, animate, and speaking levels, there are also four levels of development. In this Yod Hey Vav Hey, you have four types of blood and blood belongs to Malchut, which contains all of them.
In the Yod Hey Vav Hey, the last Hey is called Malchut; it is called “the lower Hey.” In the blood type that stands opposite that last development is the type, which you can use for everyone.
That is the root for the blood types. The Ari explains it in The Tree of Life and Baal HaSulam explains it in the Study of the Ten Sefirot, part 3. We learn it here in our Kabbalah lessons.
Question: Most of the greatest of Israel, in this generation, like Rav Kaduri, the Admorim said that the Messiah is waiting to be revealed and that this is the time when he is supposed to be revealed. It is also written that we have to cry to the Creator so He will redeem us and send the Messiah immediately. Why aren’t they doing it, the leaders of Israel who are saying that the Messiah is among us and should appear at this time?
M. Laitman: The Messiah is a force that is pulling us from this corporeal level where we are immersed in our miserable lives to a higher level. There we come to a sensation of eternity, perfection, fulfillment and discovery of the Light; when we understand what we are living for. There we can see our lives beyond life and death, and we observe this world from above while being here in this life.
The Messiah is the development of the wisdom of Israel all over the world, as Kabbalists are saying. Explicitly, the Messiah is the force of the revelation of the Creator to all the creatures. “And they shall all know Me from the least of them onto the greatest of them. For my house shall be called a house of prayer to all the nations, know the Lord, thy God.”
It’s a great revelation, and with this revelation, we get rid of all kinds of problems; we understand where everything comes from, what for, and how we should react to it so it will be improved for us and for others. People, as a result, begin to change and transcend their egos; go above the desire to harm each other.
What if the great ones of Israel went out into the streets (or through the television and other media), and starting shouting to everyone to draw the Messiah, to discover that Force. How do we get to it? We have to have a desire for it .
The Messiah is not a person; it’s a force that appears. The people are asleep, they’re not aware of it and don’t want it. If you look at researchers, you’ll see that people don’t feel the situation as bad but as good. You’ll see now, in the summer, how many people will go abroad to have a good time; no one is thinking about anything else. We’re in the darkness of exile, although we’re at the end of it. It is said that the greatest darkness is at the end of night (just before dawn) and that’s our current situation. Of course, the Messiah is drawn through prayer and request, but right now, well…
The Rabbi from Kotzk wrote that the Messiah is sitting at the gates of Jerusalem and no one knows him, no one even sees him. He sits there, in the corner on a stone, and he’s waiting for people to want him.
It’s an allegory. Jerusalem is Yirah Shlimah (complete fear), it’s the gates to heaven. So, he’s sitting there at the gate to heaven for those who really want to open the heavens, (may we already have that desire) then that Force will help us do it.
Question: How do we draw the Upper Light? You said that through authentic Kabbalah sources, books. However, what do we actually do when we read the book in order to draw the Upper Light, and what do we feel when it happens?
M. Laitman: It’s written about this in the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, item 155. This happens when a person, any person—man, woman, child, anyone—reads an authentic book of Kabbalah, which is intended to correct the souls. Actually, there were only three Kabbalists who wrote in order to correct the souls. There were other great Kabbalists throughout the ages that Baal HaSulam wrote about it. However, they were not given permission to write in this way. They did write but they wrote to people like themselves.
Only three Kabbalists wrote explicitly for people who want to be corrected and want to open a spiritual world for themselves. They were Rabbi Shimon with The Book of Zohar, the Ari with his writings and Baal HaSulam (Rav Yehuda Ashlag) with his writings.
That’s why we study these three sources. A person should open a book from these sources, and I recommend Baal HaSulam because he’s the closest to us and that’s why he’s the easiest to understand If we open up a Baal HaSulam’s book and start reading articles, or The Study of the Ten Sefirot, or The Zohar with The Sulam Commentary, by that we evoke a higher state on ourselves.
He’s writing about a state that’s higher than us; a Higher state, the Force, the Light. We want to be in that state, so we’re drawn to it. We draw the spiritual energy from there, and it affects us. It gradually corrects us and improves us, and then we begin to feel the elevation.
We begin to feel what he’s writing about, what exists between the words and what he’s talking about. We begin to feel this phenomenon within us. We feel how the world becomes full, filled with Light, enriched with Lights. It’s as if it gains volume, it’s as if it’s inflated by Light.
That’s a sensation that a person gets; not an imaginary sensation, it’s an actual sensation that a person, through reading these books, achieves. Then the sixth sense opens up to him, and he begins to feel the Upper World. Even a person who doesn’t understand anything is affected in this way. Again, it is written in the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, item 155.
Question: Is it proper to give a gift of a Kabbalah book to people that I have almost a day-to-day connection with, like my parents or my boss? I wanted to say that they have no interest but they do have some stigmas about it.
M. Laitman: There are a few gifts that I recommend giving. A book is a beautiful present, and the book week is a good time to give it. By giving a book you enrich yourself because you cause someone else to get close to correction. So, what do we recommend first of all?
Moderator: If I give someone a Kabbalah book as a present, what did I do by that? Did I evoke his or her point in the heart?
M. Laitman: No, we’re connected in one soul; we are all one soul called Adam (man/human) and each of us is a part of the common soul . Therefore, if I give someone a book, then I connect to that person, and I get connected to all the other souls; I promote myself to correction, I become closer to the Upper Force.
Speaking from experience, the more I disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah, the more I get spiritual benefits and from nothing else. Read what Kabbalists are writing about the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah; that today, it’s a must. Our good future depends on it today and there is nothing better you can do than to give a book to a friend. It’s not even expensive. It is worthwhile to give that kind of a gift; it’s really a present.
Question: There’s a lot of talking about shame. What is shame?
M. Laitman: I can’t even explain that because shame in our world is normally when I’m embarrassed about the emergence of my qualities, which people think of as improper, i.e., I stole, I did something indecent. There are all kinds of things; however, it depends on social conventions, on what society agrees to.
You see today, it’s almost common that people steal, from the Prime Minister to John Doe. People don’t mind saying, “I don’t want to go to the Army or I don’t want to work.” Others are saying, “Everyone’s like that, so I don’t care about anything, too,” etc.
Therefore, what we’re embarrassed about depends on social conventions. However, when we come to know the spiritual laws, which are the absolute laws of nature that is the way it is and that’s it. There’s no other way you can go. It’s like gravity: you take a glass and drop it, it falls as it should fall and in no other way. So, the same rules exist with respect to shame, about everything that’s forbidden and everything we should do. Generally, this is with respect to honoring your parents and loving thy friend as thyself, etc. When we discover the common laws as the existing, natural law, then we see that we don’t identify with them. We are colliding with them. It’s called “Haka’a (striking).”
In other words, they’re striking us and that’s where all our troubles come from. The more our egos increase, the more we’re on a collision course with these laws, the laws of ethics. Consequently, we feel worse; diseases, natural disasters, depression, hyperactivity in children, divorces, and high suicide rates, etc.
We have to stop and think that, on the one hand, we must discover these laws, and then we will be ashamed; we’ll end up in the real shame. Then we’ll know, exactly, what we need to correct in order not to inflict upon us these hard forces and hardships that constantly make our lives bitterer. Therefore, shame is really a great thing. It’s written that Adam and Eve were ashamed after the sin.
Moderator: What were they ashamed of?
M. Laitman: From being naked, meaning from having no covering over their ego. Their egos grew; it broke out in them, and they had no covering for it. They could not correct it in order to use it properly.
We learn the same thing in the entire wisdom of Kabbalah. The first act that the creature does at the entrance to the spiritual world from our world (if you want to go from our world and begin to feel the spiritual dimension), is the Tzimtzum (the restriction). The restriction means you’re ashamed of your own state, and you stop it and begin to behave differently.
Actually, getting to the shame is a good thing. The question is, what are you ashamed of? Look at our society, stealing—no problem; not going to the army—no problem.
Moderator: I understand that, but how do I get to it? How do I open up these absolute laws?
M. Laitman: Through the study; only when a person study does he begins to know, first of all, he reads and again, only from the books that we recommend: The Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary, the writings of the Ari and the writings of Baal HaSulam. We learn from the books of Baal HaSulam because they’re closest and most suitable to our souls, his explanations.
Then we evoke the Surrounding Light, and we begin to see through our matter, through the wrapping of this world. We begin to see how this world behaves, why it is the way it is and what’s the connection between things.
Moderator: These laws open up to me?
M. Laitman: Yes, and it’s different than the study in school. At school no one wants to learn; however, here, when you study, you open up things. It attracts you because at the same time you begin to feel fulfilled. You begin to feel fulfillment, relaxation, distances, like a child who’s enjoying life. Therefore, this thing is not difficult. Anyone’s invited and can do it and will have to do it sooner or later, because everyone has to discover the spiritual world and by that, a person becomes unlimited. So, just open the books or watch our lessons.
Question: During my monthly period I go frantic, and I can’t control myself. The ego is at its height, and I don’t know myself. I’m embarrassed of my violent behavior towards my husband and my kids. How can I control it?
M. Laitman: She can’t control it. We’re controlled by our nature, and if she feels that way, then she should take care of it through hormonal balancing. These eruptions aren’t her fault. I was involved with these problems for several years. Even in Russia, when I studied bio-cybernetics., I did research in it, researches about the delivery rooms, etc. There’s nothing she can do; she has to balance it with hormones.
It gives us an example that people have no control over themselves, and the slightest imbalance in a few chemicals or electro-chemical things in our body, can turn us into something entirely different.
Moderator: In relation to this question, what is the monthly cycle in a woman? We talked about blood before. Why do women have these monthly cycles? Of what is it a cycle of? What is it?
M. Laitman: It’s the cycle of the blood; in corporeality we know what it is. However, in spirituality the monthly cycle is that same part that goes into the future embryo and provides it with its power to develop. The embryo is developed through the blood. There are two blood cycles: the embryo’s and the woman’s. The mother’s blood feeds the fetus’s blood. It’s different blood; it’s a different system.
Thus, the fetus grows, through the blood. When it’s born, it rises to a higher level. In spirituality it rises to the Hazeh (chest), and we see that the same happens in corporeality and then the mother provides milk. Milk is the same blood, but now it’s corrected by Hassadim (mercy), that’s why it’s white. Actually, within it is the same blood as before. The surplus that the fetus cannot take in from the mother’s food comes out as the birth blood, impure blood, or the monthly cycle if the fetus is not developed, and so on.
Moderator: Who is the embryo you are talking about?
M. Laitman: In the spiritual world and in corporeality, too, we see it as the root and branch. Everything in corporeality comes down from the spiritual world; from the same forces from which, in the spiritual world, the soul develops as an embryo with the nine months of conception, etc. etc., and in our world the same exists in our bodies.
Part twelve of Talmud Eser Sefirot is difficult, but it’s very interesting; it describes how the soul develops. You will see that all the stages in the development of the soul is the source from which the corporeal embryo develops and in all the same stages.
Moderator: Why is there such a phenomena in our world that, during the monthly period, a woman is edgier than usual and her mood changes a little? Is there a spiritual root to that?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course, because there are many additional forces acting within her during the monthly period, and, sometimes in corporeality, they’re not balanced.
It is not so in spirituality. In spirituality it is in very well corrected stages. It never happens in spirituality that you advance to a situation, i.e., from stage to stage, if you are not ready for that stage and maintain your balance so that every progress is to your benefit. It’s impossible that tomorrow comes (in other words the next stage in the spiritual development), and you’re not well. There is no sickness in spirituality. On the contrary, every development is nicer and nicer.
Question: When the Rav speaks about Kabbalah, does a person who observes traditions have to put Teffilin (phylacteries), and study Mishna before that? For those who get up at three, do they have to prepare these things? I didn’t hear about this from the Rav.
Moderator: He is asking, “Should there be preliminary stages?” Studying Kabbalah at three is maybe too advanced. Should you start with something more basic: to study Mishna, to put Teffilin? If you are secular, should you become religious and then later progress to something more advanced, which is to study Kabbalah at 3:00 am?
M. Laitman: No, the study of Kabbalah doesn’t need any special preparations or abilities. Any person can learn it. We are not making people religious. We are not telling people in any way to change their lives, only to study. If the study is proper, if a person begins to discover his soul, the root of his soul, then as it is written, “A person’s soul teaches him,” and then he changes. As he changes, perhaps, he will do things like putting Teffilin or praying; perhaps, he will not. Perhaps, he will want to keep Shabbat (Saturday) , perhaps he won’t. We don’t touch that at all; our study is the way we learn it from Kabbalists. We teach the wisdom of Kabbalah, per say.
We only make sure people get a certain amount of knowledge about their soul; it’s called “the soul of Israel,” the Jewish soul. What does it mean to be Jewish? It means to be united with everyone. What does it mean to have a soul of Israel? It means a soul that goes straight to God. What does Kabbalah say? The main thing is “Love thy friend as thy self,” so people understand that this is their future. This is what we have to yearn for. If he wants to change his life in corporeality, it’s his own business.
When people come to us to study, we recommend that they don’t change anything. Besides that, the wisdom of Kabbalah comes to us from ancient Babylon and it belongs to all nations, to the whole world, and therefore, there is no mention at all of becoming religious. However, through the wisdom of Kabbalah, through spreading it all over the world, we will be able to correct the world. It is written that the Creator wanted to get to the whole world and give them the Torah but they couldn’t receive it, so he gave it to Israel.
You can read about it in the articles: Arvut, The Giving of the Torah and The Peace. Through the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can correct the world and the correction of the world depends only on internal actions of correcting our souls. As it says, “The Creator doesn’t care how you slaughter a beast, from the throat or from the back of the neck,” because the Mitzvot were given to cleanse people with. In other words, to purify them, so they transcend the ego and will ascend to love towards others. Other than “Love thy friend as thyself,” the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t teach a thing. Everything else accompanies it, and that is why we put the emphasis on that.
Question: Kabbalah says that we should love all people. Say you are suffering from a friend who consistently hurts you or a neighbor; something that really hurts. How do you stay away from them without breaching “Love thy friend as thyself?” How does that sit with morning blessings where it says, “May it be that You will save me from an evil friend, evil neighbor, evil touch?”
M. Laitman: A person advances in spirituality depending on what level he is studying, since at every degree in his progress the laws become clarified differently. If a person sees what is happening to him correctly, he will never see someone as harming him. This happens when we accept as an assumption (in the meantime), and then later perceive it in our senses that “there is none else besides Him.” This is to say, the Creator does everything and there is no other force but His, and He is the One who rules and changes the world. Therefore, how can it be that someone wants to hurt me, if it’s not happening deliberately from Him?
So it turns out that I am just not reading what’s happening, correctly. I don’t see the picture correctly. It’s not the neighbors fault, it’s mine. If a neighbor is mad at me, then perhaps, the problem is in me and not in my neighbor, except I don’t see these things. I don’t want to see them this way because of my ego. There are many things here that we need to learn before and even more than that, we have to open our eyes and see how the Creator works on everything. We discover, through the wisdom of Kabbalah, two primary things: that there is none else besides Him, that there is One force of nature or Godliness that affects the whole entire world. That we are in a network of forces, which is really One Force that builds everything, that is one.
The other thing is, this force, as much as it seems to us that it’s not good—it is good, and it is benevolent. We need to discover that the Creator is benevolent and that’s the only thing that acts; that It does and will do all the deeds. If we discover that, then there is no bad, there is no evil neighbor.
Moderator: What does it say in the prayer book “May there be a desire that You will save me from an evil friend, evil neighbor, evil touch.”
M. Laitman: He talks about the individual’s internality, the neighbor within him, the friend—those are all inside him. The Torah talks about one person, what exists within him.
Within a person there is the whole world—man is a small world. Therefore, when we are talking about family, friends, and neighbors, and when I discover them, they are inside. I discover them as a part of me, and then I stay away or connect to those parts of me that are more corrected or less corrected. I elevate this, and I lower that; that’s how I work. Outside of us there is nothing bad. It is difficult to understand, but at least we need to hear it.
Question: If the Creator is a natural law and all the physical laws and chemical laws exist regardless of me, then can the law “Love thy friend as thyself” influence those other laws and change them? How can this law “Love thy friend as thyself” be measurable? What exactly does this law say? A law is something constant. Love depends more on human ability.
M. Laitman: There are rules that affect our world that we are necessarily connected to. These laws exist at the inanimate level—the still, vegetative and animate, animate meaning our bodies. It does not matter whether we like these laws or not, they exist anyway. However, there are other laws that we have to discover; and, according to the way that we discover them, to the extent that we connect to them, we begin to affect them, and they can affect us. Then we get into what is called a different world, a different dimension, where we discover the spiritual laws.
We would have a kind of an addition to our world. It’s like discovering another dimension, and, in that dimension, the more we discover ourselves, the more we discover the spiritual laws. We would live in a world that is much broader. However, it doesn’t affect the laws of this world because we feel the laws of this world through our animate, through our beast—the still, vegetative and animate, in which these laws have complete control. We study them and use them here, in this world. Meaning, there are laws of this world that don’t change and there are spiritual laws that change to the extent that we discover them. They affect us more or less to the same extent we discover them.
Question: Are women the source of evil to the abuse they have experienced for ages by men? If so, are they the only ones that can bring correction? And if so, how?
M. Laitman: God forbid, she should think that. Why does she think that about women? Perhaps, it stems from Christianity or something, but in Judaism, the woman is much respected. I don’t know; I am amazed to hear it.
A woman is not to blame for anything of evil that comes to the world. It has nothing to do with Judaism, God forbid. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we need correction; men need correction more than women. That’s why the man says, “Blessed is He, Who did not make me a woman.” Why does he say that? Because he has got more to correct; the man has more to correct. The man has a lot more qualities that are corrupted and bad desires that he has to correct than a woman; a woman is much closer to nature.
We see how it works in this world. Women do less harm than men; she has less nonsense on her mind. If women ruled the world, I don’t think there would be wars. I think the world would be run much better. However, because we have to correct the world, men rule the world so that we would feel the evil in the world and correct it.
Moderator: That’s why men rule, to bring us to a catastrophic state?
M. Laitman: Yes, that is exactly so. Of course, women would manage the world much better than men. We can see it happening. That’s why our basic unit—the family—is run by women. At least here, we get some order, some tranquility and some proper treatment.
Just imagine what the future would look like if, instead of women, men had to take care of the children, family, and everything. Would it work? Could they handle it twenty-four hours a day? No. What do men do? They play around with all kinds of things. Not like when women work. They work really hard and do everything very thoroughly with love and truthfulness. I don’t know where she took this approach.
We need to correct the world, and it is primarily the men’s work. However, there is also a part for the women to do in their correction, which is much less than the men. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains in what way a woman is integrated in the correction and how she does it.
When we correct everything, both the men and the women achieve the same state and there is no difference between them. They are completely equal in spirituality. Spirituality is perfection; one cannot be less than the other.
Moderator: You mentioned the blessing, “Blessed is He, Who didn’t make me a woman.” However, there is the woman’s blessing, “Blessed is He, Who made me as His will.” Why does a man say, “Blessed is He, Who did not make me a woman”? What’s wrong with being a woman? Furthermore, what is the consent of a woman, what does that mean, versus “Blessed is He, Who made me as His will?”
M. Laitman: It is not bad, it’s because the man fell from a very high degree in spirituality to a much worse and lower degree in corporeality. It’s because those that were higher fell deeper. That’s what happened to the men, actually, to Adam ha Rishon (the first man). He fell much lower and the woman, seemingly, fell less. Thus the work on correction is primarily on the men to do.
Because women are like an auxiliary force to man in the correction, that’s enough for them to belong to the correction. However, a woman has to want it as it says about Mt. Sinai. There was the Mt. Sinai; there were men surrounded by women, and the women gave the strength and the desire. They are the ones who pressured the men to make the correction happen, and then they were rewarded with the giving of the Torah .
Moderator: May we be rewarded, too.