His Guidance Is Purposeful Guidance

Good evening to our learning community. And thank you to the ten that did the preparation - that reminded us why we came into this world. Life starts and then ends - and what happens in between? Do we just wander around looking for pleasures, or do we look for the precise science that is "closest to a man's heart" - as Michael Laitman once said.

We may not be aware but every time we come to a lesson the light goes into our hearts. Our mind let's us think we understand something, but the truth is that it's our hearts that understand. We need to call out to the Creator - and we need to learn how to do that through a series of principles.

We're learning The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose

Last week Baal HaSulam explained that a person can't do anything unless they know the final result. You can't for instance pick a fruit before it's ripe. But here, if you understand the whole process you'll know when it's ripe and for taking.

His Guidance Is Purposeful Guidance

By observing nature’s systems, we understand that any being of the four types—still, vegetative, animate, and speaking—however small, as a whole and in particular, is under a purposeful guidance, meaning a slow and gradual growth by way of cause and effect, as a fruit on a tree, which is guided well toward its final outcome of becoming a sweet and fine-looking fruit.

Go and ask a botanist how many phases the fruit undergoes from the time it becomes visible until it is completely ripe. Not only do its preceding phases show no evidence of its sweet and fine-looking end, but as if to anger, they show the opposite of the final outcome. That is, the sweeter the fruit is at its end, the more bitter and unsightly it is in the earlier phases of its development. The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose

We came to this world to be happy - not suffer. Where is the formula for being happy? That's the wisdom of Kabbalah. Why? Because the Creator only does good through purposeful guidance. If we'll remember the goal in our hearts all the time - we'll always be happy. Why? Because we'll remember why we're alive. When we forget - we don't feel so great.

Clip: The Creator Loves Us

The Creator has one problem, He loves us. That's a problem. Because love is a master, right? It enslaves him, makes him a slave. Just like parents who love children, they become slaves to their children, out of love. He can't do anything, but only the actions by which he brings you to the best state. That's it. Along the way, He does with you, every moment, according to the situation where you are and according to the state you need to reach, along the way He makes very precise calculations, what to do with you so that you reach the end. But you must reach the end, you must examine all the ways, you must become wise like a little child. The parents want him to be great, to be wise, to do everything on his own, they buy him games, they don't do everything for him. How to do it? They teach him how to do it, how to be great. He must himself, himself give strength, in order to learn to be like the Creator. And there is no concession in this.

How can we bring the creature, called "kingdoms of the infinite", called "man", it doesn't matter, it's not man, we are. We are all this, what we seem to be today, who we are, it's not at all, not the same character that... what it's all about, that is being established. We are parts of the system. That's it. So to bring us to the perfect state, he has no choice, out of his love, he must give us free choice, and in order to bring us to free choice, he must even apply torment. And this torment, although we later discover that it doesn't pass us by, and it's our body in general, what we now say, our will, it's not our will and it's not us. We are something else. That we are beginning to discover our spiritual selves, it's not at all what you now think it is you. Michael Laitman

We learned that the purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah is to reveal the Creator. And on the way we need to discover ourselves. We need to remember that throughout this process the Creator wants to bring you to the best possible state. He organized the most perfect situation for me at any given moment - internal and external. It's difficult to remember this - I get lost on the path of life. But that's why we come to the lesson to connect to Rav, Rabash and Baal HaSulam. We ask the light that redeems us to make us more sensitive to one another to discover who we are - allow His light to shine through us to others. We will continue reading the source in the hope that the light will continue to operate on us.

Two Paths: A Path of Pain and a Path of Torah

We have shown that the Creator is the absolute good. He watches us in complete benevolence without a hint of evil and in a purposeful guidance. This means that His guidance compels us to undergo a series of phases, by way of cause and effect, preceding and resulting, until we are qualified to receive the desired benefit. At that time, we will arrive at our purpose as a ripe and fine-looking fruit. By this we understand that this purpose is guaranteed for us all, or else you doubt His guidance, saying it is insufficient for its purpose. The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose