Description

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD talks about the purpose of suffering and the role of Kabbalah today.

Transcript

Student: According to the Kabbalah you are saying that it can be avoided?

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD: It’s preventable only through the inner correction of a person. There’s no other way. No external actions will help us.

Student: What do you mean by “external actions”?

Rav Laitman: Well suppose we start to place all sorts of sensors to detect earthquakes. To put it simply, any technical means we develop except inner corrections will eventually be to our disadvantage. We’ll see that the more drugs we produce, the more ill we become.

The more we advance in any area, in any field of development, we eventually arrive at the recognition of something bad.

Student: So the wisdom of Kabbalah agrees with the approach that there really is predetermination, and all these disasters are predetermined? Because there are prophecies in the Koran, in the New Testament, and in the Bible and Prophets; they actually talk about this time as a period of disasters. So, is Kabbalah the same kind of framework?

Rav Laitman: Let me explain this. Up until the beginning of the twentieth century, until the point when the nation of Israel began to return to the land of Israel, all of humanity needed to go through these years and to suffer and accumulate a bitter experience. And out of that, eventually comes evolution so that humanity will discern that external development doesn’t bring it to any place good.

And eventually, today, we’ve reached a general crisis—in technology, in education, in family life, social problems, international problems of all sorts. And it really is a general crisis where in all areas of humanity we see that we don’t know how to progress. We don’t know what direction to take because whatever direction we take, we see that after a few years we actually come to a bitter result.

And until now, any development that took place was only in order for us to arrive at such a situation and conclusion, and to have this question awaken in us—what should we do? What is the meaning of our life? Why do we live this way, and is there a plan for evolution that doesn’t bring us to failure and bitter sensation?

Student: So is there something that we gain from these disasters and suffering?

Rav Laitman: This is exactly when The Zohar claims that the wisdom of Kabbalah will be revealed because there will be a need for it. That’s why now, in our time, we see people everyone are talking about Kabbalah, although they still don’t understand why or what the truth is about it. It’s already coming from Above as the next step of development.