Special Tens Community Lesson on Tisha Ba'av

Today we're having a special lesson based on a lesson Michael Laitman gave in 2018.

Let's open our hearts and pray that this lesson will bring the upper light down to us. Which will pass to all of Israel and the whole world. We can do a correction right here and now.

The light operates on us but the first thing it shows us is that we need to demand that there be a change. So a person needs to choose the means that will attract as much light that reforms as possible. This is the only way for our desire to truly feel that connection is important. This is the only way to change.

We don't simply want to connect for the sake of connecting like everywhere else. We want to reach a connection that's a solution to a problem. Since we're in a purposeful environment with the light operating on us - we want to connect to exit the ego. Not to feel comfortable in the ego like everywhere else. We need to feel that nothing will ever change if we don't get out of the ego. So we need an environment that will help us think about the greatness of the goal.

We need to accelerate time. How? By attracting more light.

Look at all the friends on the screens. All these people want the light to come operate on them more than your average person going through life without the awareness of this process.

Clip: There are no dates in spirituality

"In spirituality we don't have dates, we have situations. Therefore when we say "Tisha B'Av" it means a situation, that can be any day, literally in any situation, as long as the person realizes within himself that holiness is in its destruction, and then it is called "Tisha B'Av". Did it happen 2000 years ago? No, it didn't happen, because whoever caused the destruction didn't feel that he was destroying holiness and therefore destroyed it. The fact that they came out of physical exile, they didn't feel that they were in exile in order to bestow, above the mind, connection and love among themselves. Are we in exile today? No. In redemption? Neither. We are in unconsciousness. As Baal HaSulam says, that we were given an opportunity for redemption by returning to the Land of Israel. This may really awaken us to the realization that we are actually in ruin and abroad, and not in the Land of Israel. In exile, and not that "we have returned and everything is fine."

This feeling does not exist in humans, in the nation, and therefore we have not yet reached the destruction of holiness, the destruction of the Temple, on Tisha B'Av. Because as it is written, the day the Temple was destroyed, is also the day the Temple was rebuilt, it really depends on this. If we discover that we are in ruin, then from that situation we can rebuild it and thus we will merit redemption from baseless hatred and the Temple, because it is a building of love, connection and unity. This is how we should understand, it does not depend on the means there, such as stones in Jerusalem and more, but it all depends on the person's attainment in his situation, what he needs to understand, recognize and achieve.

So with this approach that it is not about years, nor situations, nor stones, nor places, but everything is what happens in the heart of a person in his brain, how he achieves his situation compared to the situation that should be, let's see what the Kabbalists write about this." Michael Laitman

Clip: Achieving holiness depends on recognizing destruction

Achieving holiness depends on recognizing destruction. One cannot exist without the other, "And there was evening and there was morning." The construction of the vessel must be, a vessel is a disadvantage. That is, do we discover or somewhat come close to discovering the disadvantage of holiness? What is bad for us is not holiness and not its disadvantage. A disadvantage of holiness is a disadvantage of connection. And here is the matter that we need to pay attention to, how do we discover the disadvantage of connection.

Usually we discover it from the fact that we certainly do not want it, we do not need it, no one wants it, because we are the results of destruction and therefore understand only what is good for each person personally, and even more than that, each builds himself on the destruction of the other, that is, to the extent that the other is in a worse situation than me, the better I feel my situation. Therefore, first we need to see the relationships between us and determine that they are all bad, egoistic. Destruction is how I relate to the other, that I have no inclination for it in my heart. And it takes many years for a person to begin to see that this is how it is and not otherwise. Where does it come from? From the fact that enlightenment from above is slowly working on him and bringing him such a feeling.

And we have feelings. What is in the mind and what we talk to each other and each for himself, it will not change the situation. The situation must change solely by the light that returns us to our ideal form. Therefore, what we need to act on is to choose those means that attract the light that returns to our ideal form as much as possible. By what actions of mine do I attract the light? The light that reforms. That is it. It affects my will, and then my will begins to feel that the connection between us is truly important, that achieving contact between us is a fateful thing, that in this I change myself, transfer myself from this world to the upper world. And if my feeling does not change, then there is zero hope that I will change, because I have feelings, a will to receive.

Therefore, we need to pay attention to how much our emotions change and the reaction to the words of connection, love, everything that belongs to building the vessel, my reaction to these words is not an intellectual reaction but more and more emotional. Michael Laitman

Clip: The level of understanding I want to achieve

Question: What should we learn from the experience of breaking the two Temples in order to begin building the Third Temple?

When we learn what was in the past in our roots, and how disconnected we are today from the upper light, we need to learn what we need to do. We need to, so to speak, walk back from our abyss, from where we are today, truly in baseless hatred. We haven't even reached the discovery of baseless hatred yet, have we? What does "baseless hatred" mean? That I feel, discover, that I hate the other because he is an outsider, that there is a gap, an abyss between us. So first of all, that needs to be corrected.

This correction is made between friends because with the people on the street and in the world in general, I have no ability to be in touch with them and not measure the distance between us against that. Only with friends, that we yearn, let's say you and I yearn for connection, so according to the degree of yearning, to the extent that we get closer to connection, we discover to what extent there is a force that opposes connection. Then the effort to connect and the feeling of the negative reaction to the connection, it stabilizes our MAN.

What is MAN? I want to connect with all my strength like a baby, like a little child trying to do something, this is called the level of understanding that I want to achieve. And that our nature separates us and distances us, this is called the power of the kingdoms between us. Then we are in the water of bina (understanding). We regret that we are in the kingdom that separates us, and in the understanding that we try to awaken its power that will bring us closer. So this is called MAN and it rises up and brings us the light that reforms, which does work and brings us a little closer. Michael Laitman

Source from - What Is, “Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing Its Joy,” in the Work? (1990)

Hence, when one prays for the exile of the Shechina, he should not pray that it is in the dust only for him. Rather, one should pray about its lowliness in the whole world, that the whole world gives no thought to spirituality. And he prays for the whole world, as we pray, “And build Jerusalem soon in our days,” so it will be glorified in the whole world, as it is said in the Rosh Hashanah [the beginning of the year] prayer, “Be King over all the whole world with Your glory.” But since the general public does not feel the lack, how can they pray?

However, such a person, who was rewarded with obtaining the need, who has attained the exile, he can ask for redemption. But those who do not feel that there is an exile, how can they ask that He will deliver them from exile? It follows that a person’s feeling of being in exile is already considered an ascent in degree, and he must ask for fulfillment for the general public.

As was mentioned above, “Anyone who mourns for Jerusalem is rewarded with seeing its joy.” In other words, the one who feels the exile of the Shechina and mourns is the one who is rewarded with seeing its joy, since in terms of Kelim [vessels], only he has Kelim that are ready for redemption because Kelim are a desire for fulfillment.

Hence, he mourns when he feels how the Shechina is in exile and her greatness is not seen. But one who wishes to take upon himself the burden of the kingdom of heaven because He is great and ruling gets thoughts and imaginations, and these thoughts repel him outside of Kedusha [holiness], and only by overcoming and coercion above reason can he endure.

And each time he wishes to believe that His Providence is in the manner of good and doing good, he gets thoughts that slander the Creator and it pains him that he must hear slander. He believes that it is only because the nations of the world rule over the Kedusha, meaning that there is concealment, and for those who wish to enter the holy work, the Sitra Achra [other side] hides the importance of Kedusha. It follows that it is precisely the one who mourns who needs heaven’s mercy, to be able to overcome the evil in him, and he mourns and cries for the Creator to help him.

But he should certainly pray for the whole public, or it is considered that he is praying only for his own sake, that is, that only he will be delivered from exile. And if one truly asks for the sake of the Creator, to have the glory of heaven revealed in the world, how can he ask only for himself? Thus, one should ask for the glory of heaven to be revealed to the whole world, as our sages said (Baba Kamah 92), “Anyone who pleads mercy for his friend, and needs the same, is granted first.”