Description

Rav Michael Laitman, PhD explains to Rabbi Mark Golub, president of the American cable TV network Shalom TV, why Kabbalah has been dramatically increasing in popularity over the last twenty years.

Transcript

Question: I don’t in any way mean to embarrass you, but our audience has to understand—if you are not the preeminent teacher of Kabbalah in the world today, you are among them. Can you tell me from your vantage point, as you have seen the process over the last twenty years, what you think the reason is that so many, many people from all walks of life, from all parts of the world, are coming to Kabbalah for an attempt to find an answer to some of the spiritual questions of existence. What is at the root, do you think, of the move of Kabbalah at the present time?

Rav Laitman: The world has been moved forward through the vast period of its existence by human egoism. Our egoism is always growing. It’s developing inside of people from one generation to the next. Besides that, egoism of every individual grows over his or her lifetime. We are not animals where we are born and die at the same level. We are evolving.

As a result of our scientific, public and social development, humanity has always hoped that the next generation will be happy, will work less, will rest more, will be more contented and fulfilled. We used to think like this just fifty years ago. I remember when I was a child, in the forties, we were told that people will be working three or four hours a day in fifty years time. That they’ll have time for recreation, that they’ll live a blissful and a beautiful life. And as a result, we come to something completely opposite. The very human egoism that pushed us ahead and promised development and delight, in the end has let us to an impasse. We can see today that we are unable to find fulfillment. We used to run forward thinking that we’ll be fulfilled and now we’ve stopped.

Humanity plunges into depression, suicide, drugs, trying somehow to suppress itself to disengage. Terrorism and similar phenomena are symptoms of a universal crisis—a general crisis—and it’s leading us to a state when a person will have to answer the question about the meaning of life. This is the way that people begin to search for that answer. And we can see that over the last twenty years. As it said in the Book of Zohar, “In the end of the twentieth century humanity will be faced by this question,” which is why the science of Kabbalah can be revealed only at that time.

Kabbalah was concealed over the millennia for that very reason. I witnessed it happen in our times. Since I’ve been studying Kabbalah—around thirty years—I’ve seen the interest in Kabbalah increasingly rise in recent years. Gradually people stopped been intimidated by it, they started investigating it, “What can it give me?” Once they learn that Kabbalah answers the questions about meaning of life, then they are not afraid to study it anymore. And notions that Kabbalah is magic, miracles, read strings and holy water—they gradually dying out.

People can see that these are psychological tricks, nothing more. They develop an interest in true, authentic Kabbalah, which allows us to sense the greater universe around us that’s eternal—forces that conduct us. To see ourselves in all our life cycles, our destiny, and why our world and our lives are the way that they are, and what we’re being led to?

In our time a vast number of people worldwide have begun developing an interest in that question. And that’s why our international Kabbalah Academy has such a large number of students.

Question: My understanding is it is certainly possible to study for years and yearss Kabbalah. Correct? So, the answers are not simple and easy to come by. They take years to really understand, correct?

Rav Laitman: Yes it does.

Question: And it’s almost a lifetime process, is it not?

Rav Laitman: Yes, but this process is captivating. It shows people the meaning of their lives, their existence. They begin understanding why everyone behaves the way they do. Why everything is happening the way that it is. We can see the forces that govern our world. The world becomes translucent for us. We see and we sense through it and moreover we can see our eternal state above it—before we were born, after we died, the overall picture of the Universe. We associate ourselves with something that doesn’t lie only on the plane of this world. That’s why it’s a special science and the unique experience. It’s like a non-stop fantasy adventure that one experiences. It gives ever-growing fulfillment and attainment.

Question: Since it is a life-long process, it is an unfair question for me to ask you, but you’ve said I could ask you anything, and I will. Is it possible for you, so our viewers have a sense, some of of our viewers simply don’t know what Kabbalah is. Is it possible for you to give a couple of minutes that explains what the essence of Kabbalah is? What it is that the essence of the Kabbalistic answer to the question that really takes a lifetime to learn, but even a hint of the answer?

Rav Laitman: The meaning of life is to reach such a sensation of the universe during this lifetime, that there will be no difference between life and death in this world and existence in another world—on another plane, in another dimension—when one starts to freely live in all the dimensions, not just in one’s present sensation.

Question:  And how does this affect ego?

Rav Laitman: The problem is that when one an egoist, one senses only a small life inside, holding it within and sensing only that and that’s why all of our suffering and problems are a consequence of our ego. As soon as we exit ourselves, get outside of our ego, when we can exit our own self, we immediately sense a higher outer world. We get rid of ourselves, so to speak, our suffering, our closed restricted sensations and then our whole life turns into an immence stream of delight.