Film "24 Hours In The Life Of A Kabbalist"

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January 04

09:36 PM

24 Hours in the Life of a Kabbalist: Rav Michael Laitman

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We were in a major accident. I was the driver. It shattered my lungs and liver completely. They brought me and my sister in, and we saw him lying there, blood still clotted on his body. My sister burst into hysterical tears, and her tears fell on Dad's body lying there. That's when I understood how serious it was. I was together with Rav in the same car. I woke up in the hospital, severely injured. The friends didn't recognize my face. They told me, "Rav is also in the hospital, still unconscious. We don't know what to do. What's going to happen to us from now on? What will be next?" Around the accident, I realized the power of the group my father was building. Suddenly, I realized he wasn't just my father. The lungs were filled with blood, and I couldn't breathe, constantly choking, like you're underwater. And then I heard the doctors talking, "Well, we'll do this for him now, and then that, and then we'll see. If he lives, he lives." I'm sitting at the hospital entrance with a choked throat and tears in my eyes. This moment will never get out of my head. And constantly, the thought and feeling passed through me that after searching my whole life for the person who'll teach me the most important thing in life, and now he's going to leave? That can't be. No way. I went through a clinical death. There were visions as if you see from afar, as if you see things from the outside, all sorts of things. This is what people who go through clinical death feel a bit at the end of the road. That is, what's waiting for them there. It's all a lie. It's not similar to the spiritual state. We want to make a film about you. We want to open up a bit this curtain that is separating us from the science of Kabbalah to refute myths about it. You've been studying Kabbalah for almost 50 years. You've learned from great sages. You also have thousands of students. We think that by presenting a film with you, we'll be able to talk about the spiritual world, we will be able to give an answer to people who ask themselves, "Why was I given this life?" I understand, but this doesn't suit me. I was many years beside the great Kabbalist, the Rabash, and it wouldn't have suited him at all to engage in himself in any way. You could see that he was great, and I, according to my character, I have nothing in which to make myself great. I understand that's not what you want for the film, but that's how it is. Before I get up in the morning and wake up, this film of the lesson, what I'll convey to you, is already running inside me. Day after day, I get up and discover how hard it is for me to wake up properly for the lesson, that I want to reach it with all my strength, my mind, and heart, and I can't. Every morning, a new, otherwise it won't be a new day. And I need to wake up again and again, awaken myself and connect to the group. And the connection should be a new connection, not as it was yesterday. More difficult and more courageous. And I read and I look up all kinds of excerpts, but I feel myself that I'm dead, day after day. Once in a while, we hear from Rav that he goes through periods of lack of strength. But regardless, I can say with confidence that none of us has seen Rav in such a state. After all, we know him differently. I don't predict the future, and I don't do any supernatural things. I teach my students how slowly and small steps to reach the truth and acquire it. Our wisdom of Kabbalah is a scientific, didactic form. It's a method of how a person changes himself, and through this comes to know the upper force. And as the Kabbalists write, this can take 10 or 20 years. Only special people who have a point in the heart understand there's no other way. And others will go somewhere else to mysticism. It's important to me that ordinary people from the land of Israel, especially, will hear what I say and understand what lies ahead of them in some form. Not from me, through someone, but the main thing is that these external changes will happen to all inhabitants of the world. We're reading from the introduction to the Book of Zohar, item 14. Thus, you necessarily find that on the whole, there are three states to the soul. The science that we now want to reveal is how much the connection or distance between us affects all of nature, the still, vegetative, animate, and even on the relationships between people. We will see this with our own eyes, that we are moving closer between us, and suddenly all the viruses disappear, the hurricanes, the cold and heat waves, all the problems, everything. We move a little closer between us, and suddenly all kinds of bad forces calm down in all kinds of places and countries. This is really a very interesting science, how much the phenomena within us, when we quiet them, we move closer upon the hatred, so there will be love. We don't destroy the hatred, the natural forces of minus and plus, the opposition between them remains. Only we know how to work with both of them together to give the Creator room to govern. And this is called, "He who makes peace in his heavens will make peace upon us," the complementation between minus and plus. How do you receive the information that you give in a lesson? Can you explain how you feel about it? It's like a scientist who feels the phenomena from the world, or who looks at the sky if he engages in astronomy, or into planet Earth if he engages in geology. But this is his profession, so he sees before everyone and more than everyone. It's the same with me. My laboratory is humanity. When I look at what happens in humanity and after what transpires, then I understand from this that it is at a lower degree than it should be already. We need to hurry with our correction. During the time of that state, no correction will come to the bodies, only to the souls. Introduction to the Book of Zohar. The will to bestow Bina mingles with Malkut. It enters the will to receive, and then by this, the will to receive begins to be even more cruel. Evil in the world, that all those scoundrels who attack us and through supposedly good, beautiful deeds pull from us everything possible. They manage us, confuse us, all the governments, all those managers. Phase two and phase four were mingled together and caused the second restriction, preface to the wisdom of Kabbalah. It turns out we are reaching a state that those same things that should be for the correction, they work for the corruption, for the corrupted Bina, and this is called, "He has swallowed up riches and he will vomit it up." Questions, "Rav, can we now, in this lesson, reach the end of correction?" At every moment, not just this lesson. How should we approach the public? Why is the corporal people of Israel punished for not keeping the mutual guarantee? What is the work in the mind and heart? Do you see that we're progressing and doing it correctly? What is the benefit from the destruction of the temple? How not to deviate from this path? How can we connect these separate souls into one soul? What should we be careful of so we don't cause harm to the public? We lack fire. Whenever I feel between the highs and the lows, I call on my friends to show me the way to rise from below. En la elevación sentiré ya la luz. Mis amigos vendrán junto a mí y subirán por encima del yo. Each step that we take, each wall that we break, we're rising high above ourselves towards the light that never ends. We will rise above ourselves. Each step that we take. Michael Eitman was born in 1946 in Vitebsk, a family of Holocaust survivors. His parents were doctors, and in his childhood, he was interested in music and photography. In 1964, he was accepted to the Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad and has a degree in computer science. He studied biology and medical cybernetics. During his studies, he was a sound technician in the music group Nomads. After finishing his studies in the institute, he worked in the Kronstadt laboratory of the Academy of Military Medicine on space medicine. In 1974, after prolonged opposition from the Soviet authorities, he immigrated to Israel. He worked in the IDF, he has a personal business, his family expanded in Israel, and he is a father of three children. We don't know when Michael Eitman began searching for his spiritual teacher, but we know he found him in 1979. This is Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag, son of the great Kabbalist, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Baal HaSulam. Michael was his faithful servant and continues the path of Rav Baruch. In 1997, he founded Bnei Baruch Kabbalah for the People Association, named after his teacher. He has a PhD. There are several million people on the planet who call him their teacher. Dad. Yes. So many fears and concerns, especially when I think about him. What will be? It'll be fine. He'll grow up and take his place. There's a lot of uncertainty. Yes. Where is the world going? The world is certainly going in a bad direction. We can see everything according to the types of egos that are revealed. Why specifically our corrupted form in the relationship between us is revealed in this or that form of diseases and revolutions and wars and so on. According to what's being revealed now, I don't even want to talk much about it, but we are facing several blows of plagues. Rav, you've predicted the future many times and quite accurately. Can you explain how that happens? How does this mechanism work? Maybe through this chart as an example. And this chart, where does it appear? This chart? Yeah. I feel it before me. It appears in all of humanity in the world. Natural disasters, cold, heat, plagues, wars. This is what I feel. Can you say from where you know this? Well, how can I explain it? What do I see? I see a process that is happening all over the world, and from that I speak. The upper force is approaching us according to its own time, and we are not compatible with it. And according to the gap between us and the upper force, which is entirely a force of bestowal, and we are a force of reception, so its nearing to us should bring us all kinds of disasters. Time passes, and humanity does nothing to adapt itself to the flow of time. Gilad, you served some time in the Navy. Yeah, I served as an electronics officer on a missile ship. Did you ever fight? Yes, I participated in the First Lebanon War. Then it was called Operation Peace for the Galilee. I remember there was some artillery battle opposite the shores of Beirut that fired at us. We fired at them, and it was like a Wild West duel. Who will hit first? And you see the shells hitting the water 300 meters from you, and then 200 meters from you, and 100 meters from you, at 50 meters from you, and it's clear to you that the next shell will fall on the ship. And that thought passed through me. You're too young. What have you accomplished? You haven't done anything. You must win here. This was one of the formative events that brought me to think, what am I living for? And to search out the answer to the question. Hello, we're in the Raiders meeting with Rav Dr. Michael Eitman. Hello, Rav. Hello, everyone. We're about a week before the 9th of Av. What is this strong and special force operating on us these days? A negative force, a force of separation, distancing, hatred. What is our connection, today's Jews to the Jews back then, 2000 years ago? We are the same people, the same character. The separation between us is always present. By this, we raise hatred in all the nations surrounding us and give them the power to break us. What can we do now to prevent the next blows? We need to make a correction that is placed upon us and depends only on us. And this is why all humanity depends upon us, and subconsciously it feels this dependence, and we don't want to recognize this dependence. They come to us and pressure and say, "Enough, this is what we want, not territories, not peace, and not all kinds of things, and not success in all kinds of situations. We want nothing from you except one thing, the method for correcting the world, because the world is deteriorating to a state of complete chaos." But what in the nature of the Jews causes them to return again and again to the same ruin? What don't we learn from the past? This is called a stiff-neck people. What would you do if you had such a stubborn son who doesn't want to do this? This is the Creator's problem. Okay, and how does he solve his problems? He puts more and more pressure every year, more and more, until we recognize our obligation. How is it the nations of the world understand this message better than us? They don't have the same ego as we do. They're not connected to the Creator directly. They're not stiff-necked like us. Rav wrote the first books and articles himself, but today, with the amount of media coming out from the walls of this building, it's impossible. In these Raiders meetings, Rav exposes the causes, the spiritual roots of everything that occurs in Israel and the world. And we? We type on the keyboard and transmit his messages to the world. So who's to blame? I am the reason that this is happening to them, and I need to be the reason that they truly connect and speak to be as one man with one heart. We will then build a connection between us, specifically above all the hatred, a connection of love. And this will be the true third temple, as the Creator says. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. One more question. You're a Kabbalist. You're in the spiritual worlds. Why do you feel the need to deal with the matters of our world with all of these changing events? I remember the Rabash when there was the Lebanon War, and some Hesed came to see Rav running to the radio to turn on the radio. So he asked him what happened. So I tell him it's news. He wants to hear the news, what's happening there in Lebanon. אז the Rabash comes back and then he says to him, "What is the news? What is it? Does this suit us, faithful Jews? What's news?" Rabash says, "Do you have children there?" It's true. It was really very moving. Rav Baruch Ashlag, the Rabash, was born in the Jewish district of Warsaw in 1907. He was the first child in his family of the prominent Kabbalist, Yehuda Halevi Ashlag. He remained forever his good student and devoted successor. In 1921, the Rabash moved with his parents to the land of Israel and entered the Jerusalem, Torah Temit Yeshiva. There he studied Torah and Kabbalah for 16 hours a day. He got married in 1925. Six children were born from this marriage. All the years he continued studying Kabbalah under his father's guidance and simultaneously worked as a construction worker, later as a reinforcement worker, including on the Jerusalem Hebron Road, and also as a shoemaker. In addition, he served as an income tax inspector. The Rabash dedicated his life to explaining and spreading methods for studying Kabbalah in a way accessible for the understanding and study by a modern generation. The Rabash passed away in 1991 and was buried on Hal Haminchut next to his father in Jerusalem. It's hard without the Rabash. It's a wall. It's life without questions. We know that at this hour, usually you work alone behind a closed door, and we don't know what you do there. I remember once I mustered the courage and asked you about this. You told me, "This is the work of a Kabbalist." And now we want to ask, who is a Kabbalist? A Kabbalist is a person connected with the Creator and dedicating all his life to how to advance towards this. Is it possible to express in words what a Kabbalist feels? I see the upper force that operates within humanity, and therefore I have my own view, my own opinion from this. Rav Amos never talks about his spiritual achievements. He apparently wants us to rise to these stages by ourselves. In addition, we learn that it's hard to convey in our words impressions from the upper world, a rich, diverse world. But there's a short and very special segment in our archive. When did you feel the light for the first time? This I can say because many of my students have already gone through this, and it's possible. A person feels the light for the first time when he begins studying Kabbalah, and suddenly, truly suddenly, some revelation comes to him that he feels that he's in a sea or in a cloud, I don't know, in something dense like that, of warmth and love that shines on him from all sides. And it's as if this world doesn't exist. The world does exist and everything, but besides that, he feels how the air is filled with a good demeanor, beautiful, breathing. And this feeling is usually the first meeting of a person with the light. How can we know that a Kabbalist is real? Is there proof of this? We can't judge Kabbalists by their writings, by their attitude, by their behavior, by nothing. Nothing in this is understood, and each and every one can hide himself so no one will see him. Wait, how does it reconcile with the fact that there is a Kabbalist like you who has millions of students around the world? If he feels in his connection with the Creator that he must perform some work and that he's in a period, let's say like ours, that he must perform work with humanity and all kinds of other such works, spiritual or corporeal, then he performs it. During the war with Iraq with Saddam Hussein, suddenly I read in the newspaper that this Michael Leitman had written a book about Kabbalah. The next day I went to the store and I bought this book. At the end of this book, it was written that anyone who read the entire book has an invitation and a phone number. I called and he asked me, "Did you read to the end?" I said, "Yes." "Really?" he said. "And did you understand everything you read?" I said, "No, no, no, no, no. I have many questions." He said, "Come, come, let's talk." I came to him and I've been with him for 33 years. We started studying in Michael Leitman's apartment, and with time, more and more people came until there was no more room in his living room. We found some small hut on Rain Street. It was a huge place for us. And there were morning lessons there, holidays. It was an unforgettable time. And then the group grew again. We felt crowded in our old and pleasant building, so we rented an industrial building, renovated it, created our own television station, and thousands of people all over the world listened with bated breath to the morning lesson. And again we felt crowded. 3,000 people, all at once, each decided to put in as much as he could, and we bought the building. We built these walls with our own hands. There's a study hall here, study rooms, a studio, even a small hall and a larger one. That is, everything is here to be a supportive environment for every person who wants spiritual development. And the well of life, the initiating leading force, is Rav Leitman. It's the Kabbalist. I've traveled enough to the US and South America and Russia and Europe and all kinds of places and gave lectures and everything. I see myself as working with whoever wants to listen. But with publicity, that's not me. I've been abroad with Rav dozens of times, both at conferences and on private trips. And what characterizes him is that he really settles for little. He never agreed to fly business class. At the airport, when the suitcases arrive, he's the first to jump in and bring everyone their suitcase. He certainly doesn't let anyone carry his suitcase. If I were alone without students, no one would have heard of me. This is how every Kabbalist would do, I'm sure. What do I get from this? I don't receive importance from this. I don't need from them neither money nor honor nor anything. Do you work alone or does somebody help you? We're not talking, of course, about technical work, but spiritual work. I work alone towards the Creator. There are other people, but not beside me, outside, according to methods close to Baal HaSulam, but different. In the history of Kabbalah, there are thousands of names that are known to us and thousands of names unknown. But only a few of them are connected to the central changes and the system of understanding the upper world. One of them is Yehuda Leib Halevi Ashlag, known to us as Baal HaSulam. He was born in 1884 in Lukov, 100 kilometers from Warsaw, the capital of the Kingdom of Poland. From a young age, he amazed his instructors with his brilliant knowledge of all the foundational books of Judaism. He also became a student of the prominent Kabbalists of his time, the Admor of Kalisz and the Admor of Persov. Furthermore, he was interested in the works of renowned Western philosophers. Later on, he would compare their views to the view of the science of Kabbalah and his articles. Since he foresaw the approaching Holocaust, Baal HaSulam and his family moved to Israel. This was in the autumn of 1921 during Holomohed Sukkot. In Jerusalem, Baal HaSulam was disappointed. The local Jews welcomed him with open hostility. His idea to spread Kabbalah to the masses was not understood by them. Moreover, they rejected the wisdom of Kabbalah. Thus, despite persecution, Baal HaSulam gathered a group of faithful students in the next 30 years and created a technique that humanity had not known, a scientific translation of an ancient wisdom adapted to modern generations. He wrote commentaries to all the classical Kabbalah books, including the Tree of Life by the Ari and the Book of Zohar by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. They were translated into many languages. Baal HaSulam passed away in 1954 and left his group in teaching methods in the hands of the best of his students and his firstborn son, Baruch Shalom Ashlag, known as the Rabash. I drove into the Nebrak. It was rainy and dark. An ultra-Orthodox religious man stood at a street corner of Rabbi Akiva and Kassonish, and I opened the window a bit like this and asked him, "Where do they study Kabbalah here?" "You understand, this is asking Benei Barak like that." And he says, "You turn right and drive to the end, last house on the left, opposite the orchard. There they study Kabbalah." When I told this to the Rabash, he said, "That was an angel." When I arrived at the Rabash, I saw a table, and at the table sat five old men. After a day or two that I was there, this environment became for me from five old men to the most important in the entire world. They were really great. Your teacher, the Rabash, did he know your future? Otherwise, he wouldn't have engaged with me all the time. After all, it was 12 years, day by day, many hours a day. Did he immediately see the spark in you? He saw it. He saw it. Rav Dr. Michael Leitman studied with Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag, the Rabash. The Rabash was the student and son of Rav Yehuda Leib Halevi Ashlag, known by his nickname, Baal HaSulam. Baal HaSulam was the student of Rav Yehoshua Rabinovich of Persov. In this way, like fresh water, the chain of Kabbalists flowed from generation to generation until it reached the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov. What does it feel like to bestow? You have 7 billion people in the world. Put together all their pleasures. Let's say this is a spark compared to the light you attain in the highest spiritual degree. These are the nations of the world who want to wash Israel away, to remove them from the world. And Israel do not break, but rather the waves break and cannot wash over the world. I can't imagine living abroad. There's no other place except here. If we bring warmth, reciprocity between us above all the differences, we will create a new reality. And all that the Creator does to Israel when he delivers them, bit by bit and not all at once. It is like a person who is in the dark and has always been in the dark. When you want to give him light, you first need to open a small light for him, like the eye of a needle, and then a little bigger and likewise more each time until all the light properly shines for him. We don't yearn to reveal the spiritual world. The truth is, there's nothing to reveal. There's nothing to reveal because it doesn't exist. We need to build it from our relations, from our corrected qualities.