What Determines The Future Of A Person?

Question: What determines the future of a person?

Answer: Undoubtedly, everybody is interested in the future. At every moment of time, it bursts into the present and turns into the present.

Therefore, the future is constantly connected to us and determines our present. If we know that something is about to happen, even not very soon, we nevertheless expect it and our state in the present depends on it, especially our mood, our attitude to the world and to life. Therefore, the future is a factor that significantly affects our lives.

Question: Is this what distinguishes a person from an animal?

Answer: Animals sense the future, but not to the same extent as a person and they are not so susceptible to it.

The future of a person depends on the way he adjusts himself in the present. After all, in fact, there is no future. If we live passively then we determine the future, what it will be, meaning depending on other people, circumstances and everything else.

When we live spiritually, there is neither future nor present. We somehow can talk about the past, because we were in a state when time was flowing, some kind of changes were happening within us. However, if I am now in the present, I can clearly make of myself such a created being that has no future.

In our world it sounds very unpleasant, “You have no future,” and to say this to a person means to kill him. Yet, in the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is not so. You have no future because you are going to create it by yourself now.

Go and do it, sculpt it, draw a picture of it and that is what it will be. And when will it be? Whenever you want.

However, if there is no past, present, and future, no world at all, and it is all just depicted to us by our qualities on the white background of the upper light, then what is the meaning of the question “What determines the future of a person?” It depends on a person!

And not just in the way we pathetically state, “A person makes his own future!” No. The fact is that each person knowing this algorithm of influencing himself, makes himself and the future because his internal desires create him and the external desires – the world around him. Therefore, the future depends only on him, and with all its elements and details.

It is not easy to come to this. However, we are capable of it and someday we will be able to do it. In the meantime, it seems to us that this is a fantasy.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/28/19

Why Did God Allow Millions Of Jews To Die In WW2? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why did God allow millions of Jews to die in WW2?“

We need to understand, as is explained in the wisdom of Kabbalah, that in history, nature doesn’t consider the amount of bodies in the world. The upper force, or nature, calculates only with regard to the implementation of the process toward the attainment of its final perfect state of complete unification. In this process, there are times when we Jews flow in the currents of the world, like a disease in its latent period, and there are periods when the disease surfaces and needs to be treated.

The wisdom of Kabbalah became open for all in the 16th century, during the time of the great Kabbalist, the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria). Since then, there has been a demand for its realization, i.e. the revelation of Godliness (the force of love, bestowal and connection) to all people in the world. Accordingly, if the Jews would have approached this method, wanting to engage in it and reveal Godliness both for their own sake and for the whole world, then we would be living in a completely different world today, filled abundantly with love, happiness and peace.

Since the Jews have made no significant steps toward the implementation of this method, then they cause all negative phenomena to appear in the world. Both Jews and non-Jews are unaware of this, but it subconsciously dwells within non-Jews that the Jews are to blame for the negativity in their lives. Therefore, the mass murder of Jews during World War 2 came as an extreme climax to implement the hatred toward them for that reason.

In his “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) describes this phenomenon:

“In such a generation, all the destructors among the nations of the world raise their heads and wish primarily to destroy and to kill the children of Israel, as it is written (Yevamot 63), ‘No calamity comes to the world but for Israel.’ This means, as it is written in the above corrections, that they cause poverty, ruin, robbery, killing, and destruction in the whole world.”

New States Are Better Than The Old Ones

Question: If I read Baal HaSulam’s letters and feel how I roll along with the author from one described state to another, how can I not leave this internal movement with him? How can I stay with the author all the time?

Answer: It really takes a lot of effort. But even if it does not work, do not worry, you will come to this again anyway. Most importantly, do not try to stay in a particular spiritual state. Real Kabbalists even asked to forget everything and start anew. Imagine how much they understood that new states are better than old ones. Do not be afraid of anything! Surrender to this flow, let it carry you forward.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 3/10/19

New Life #273 – Teaching Children To Be One

New Life #273 – Teaching Children to be One
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Children need to be educated to connect with others from an early age, which will lay the foundation for them to develop a spiritual couple connection as adults.There is no difference between the sexual education of girls and boys. First, they learn to connect with the same sex and, later, to the opposite sex. A spiritual environment shows children that connection between people brings us to a higher degree of development and life. We talk about how to rise above the ego, pair over rejection, and connect on top of hatred. We provide an example for how to become one heart in one mind rather than two and eventually unite with the whole world.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #273 – Teaching Children to be One,” 12/22/13

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“Unity Is Our Only Shield against Anti-Semitism” (The Times Of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “Unity Is Our Only Shield against Anti-Semitism”

Campuses in the US and UK, once places for the enlightenment and ideological progress of society, have descended into epicenters of vicious anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment, two sides of the same coin. They have become hotbeds of fundamentalist political agendas sponsored by special interest groups. A recent visit by a group of my students to Oxford University in England confirmed this perception. The Jewish professors they spoke with anxiously await retirement due to the hostile atmosphere and threats against them. Conditions will only worsen unless we Jews take this situation into our own hands and unite.

As part of a research project about anti-Semitism, some of my students conducted a series of interviews with scholars and professors in the UK who have faced anti-Semitism in academia. According to their testimonials (which will be compiled into a documentary to be aired later this year), they have been victims of threats and harassment for being Jewish or for supporting Israel, a country constantly under attack on both American and European college campuses.

Jew-hatred dressed as so-called “legitimate criticism” of Israel and its policies, singles out the Jewish state for harsh accusations of “apartheid” and “genocide.” “Israel Apartheid Week” claims to be mushrooming this year into 200 events held across 30 countries on five continents. And where are the events’ preferred venues? Indeed, they are in the very college campuses where the seeds of anti-Semitism are being methodically planted and harvested.

Recently, an officer of a student minority group at Bristol University in the UK, whose role is to combat prejudice on campus, told a Jewish student to “be like Israel and cease to exist.” This is no isolated case of bigotry against Jews. In the beginning of the year, hundreds of students voted against allowing the creation of a Jewish Society at Essex University after a member of the British university’s Amnesty International group urged students to reject it arguing that the initiative was not “politically neutral.” This reflects the tendency shown in a 2017 survey of 485 Jewish students in England: two-thirds of the survey’s respondents reported being targeted on campus because of their Jewishness.

In the last few years, millions of dollars have been injected into universities around the world to advance anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish agendas, all sponsored by foreign governments and organizations whose aim is to advance their anti-Semitic rhetoric and agendas. While faculties are permissive, under the guise of pluralism, even Jewish academics jump on the bandwagon to actively support and promote these causes, as paradoxical as it may seem. By way of illustration, last year, the American Association of University Professors issued a statement attacking Israel for banning professors who are active members of the BDS movement against the Jewish state.

What Can Be Done About Such a Highly-Funded and Methodical Approach to Anti-Semitism and Israel Delegitimization?

As I explained in my recent article, “If you were donating to combat anti-Semitism, where would you donate?” any effort to confront the growing plague of Jew-hatred and demonization of Israel with costly campaigns will be useless, as witnessed by the fact that they have borne no fruit up until now.

We Jews are a nation conceived in order to bring connection and unity to the world. When we fail to carry out our vocation, our ancient sages tell us that the nations instinctively feel that there is no justification for our presence here on Earth, and unmerciful anti-Semitism unfolds and spreads in every field in which Jews are engaged. It is written in The Book of Zohar that when we do not carry out our mission, “Woe unto them [Jews], for with these actions they bring about the existence of poverty, ruin, and robbery, looting, killing and destructions in the world” (Tikkuney Zohar, 30).

In other words, our only shield is our unity. As it is written, “The prime defense against calamity is love and unity. When there are love, unity, and friendship between each other in Israel, no calamity can come over them” (Maor Vashemesh).

Before the ruin of the Temple, our forefathers developed a unique method of connection. They did not suppress one another’s characteristics, nor did they exploit one another. Each used their individual skills for the common good, thereby creating a society that both supported everyone’s personal fulfillment while strengthening the social fabric that kept it together.

In order for us to unite today, we need not suppress or downplay our differences. What is required from us is simply to rise above the differences that separate us. Today, that same simple-yet-effective method of connection that our forefathers perfected and committed to sharing with the nations is imperative for the survival of our society. The world is telling us that it is time to return to our roots and reignite our mutual responsibility, putting into practice the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself.” By doing so, true peace and tranquility will prevail on campuses and in every walk of life.

“One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind”

Exactly 50 years ago, a significant event happened: the world watched with bated breath as man made his first steps on the Moon. All the radio stations and TV channels were broadcasting the words of Neil Armstrong: “That is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Now, after 50 years, can we say that it really was a great breakthrough for humanity?

Back then, I was a young man, 23 years old, a student, and I remember how I was inspired by these shots. I used to dream of such journeys. There were a lot of people around me and we all kept our eyes glued to the screen watching what was happening.

First of all, I was interested in this as a scientist, which I was preparing to become. It was a major breakthrough in science. Of course if you look at this event today, it does not seem so fateful. Today no one is impressed by space travel. However, at that time, people were very passionate about it. Man wanted to get out of the earthly framework, to break away from the Earth and find out what is happening beyond it.

This really was a giant leap for humanity, looking up from Earth, we established for certain that the Earth is round. In ancient times, people generally considered it to be a disk. I remember being struck by images from the Moon: the globe rising above the horizon just as we usually see the Moon rising in the sky. It was a very interesting inversion.

We began to understand that we are in a vast universe that is empty. There is no other life in the entire universe except for the one unique ecosystem which connects inanimate nature, plants, animals, and people on Earth, and gives us life. We took a step into space, opening a new space, but it was dead.

Here humanity is beginning to realize two opposites: we face the endless open space of the universe, but there is no life in it, just stones and a vacuum. Therefore, we need to take care of our planet—there will be no other place. It is necessary to perceive all people as living together in one house. I do not see that going to the Moon has changed people’s attitudes in this sense. But at least it has triggered research in this direction.

Over the past 50 years humanity has developed significantly, but for the worse. We have proven that we are alone in the universe and that the Earth is a unique place that gives us life. Yet, despite this, we are destroying it, approaching an irreversible red line, and we do not consider anyone. It shows us how destructive our egoism is; it is killing us and we need to do something about it.

The next “small step for man, which will become a giant leap for humanity” will be a step toward unification between us. To do so, you do not need to step on the Moon or another planet, but you need to step on yourself. Each person must step on his own egoism, then we will really make a huge breakthrough for all humanity because we will be able to save ourselves from self-destruction.

If each of us takes a small step out of himself, stepping on his own selfishness, it will elevate us all much higher than the Moon and the stars in a completely different dimension. We cannot abolish our egoism, but we can rise above it. This requires a special force; no rocket will be able to raise us above ourselves.

Each person is held by the force of gravity of his own egoism, and therefore, it is necessary to awaken the opposite force, which will tear him away from the love for himself. The wisdom of Kabbalah is intended for this purpose and only it gives us the power to elevate ourselves above the surface of the Earth, to tear us away from the egoism that presses us to the earth.

We would like to rise and grow above our egoism, but we cannot. This requires a special method of connection, which is taught by Kabbalah. Then we will feel ourselves in a rocket in the boundless universe. By breaking away from egoism, we will understand what special forces the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and the entire universe have. We will learn why this system is built this way and what our role is, why we exist in it. Everything will become clear to us; we just need to rise above our egoism.
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/18/19

If Arabs Are Also Semitic, Then Why Does The Term “Anti-Semitic” Mean Anti-Jew Only? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “If Arabs are also Semitic, then why does the term “Anti-Semitic” mean anti-Jew only?“

Firstly, I think that there is no real need to deal with such definitions, because they change throughout history according to the tastes and views of different people and cultures. Likewise, “Semite” has many definitions according to various sources. According to what is written in the Torah, the Arabs are the outcome of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar, and accordingly, the Ishmaelites are relatives of the Jews. Today in particular though, anti-Semitism relates only to Jews, and Arabs themselves also relate to anti-Semitism as anti-Jewishness.

New Life #272 – Sex And Human Development

New Life #272 – Sex and Human Development
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Can we learn how to make proper use of the sexual drive in order to improve the world? All the despair that fills the world today is designed to push us into a new, spiritual connection with one another. We are thirsty for a new type of sexual connection that is not based on enjoying at the expense of others, as is the case with lust. Sex can be enjoyed a billion times more if we add a mutual, inner, spiritual bond between the two. Without this bond, everything we feel is absorbed within our desire to enjoy and results in loss of sexual desire and sexual dissatisfaction. At the end of our development, when each one concedes to create a higher mutual connection between them, all possible passions will be revealed and fulfilled for eternity.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #272 – Sex and Human Development,” 12/20/13

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Constant Fulfillment In Yearning

A person does not receive fulfillment from the love itself but from the longing for love, from yearning for the one he loves. He is happy that he is experiencing these feelings without receiving egoistic fulfillment.

Therefore, spiritual action is performed through faith above reason, for the sake of bestowal. This is a different kind of Kli. It is the yearning that fulfills a person; it is the main thing, and therefore, it is necessary to grow it.

The same rule applies in our world: as long as we are yearning for the goal, it fulfills us much more than its achievement and the realization of our dream. Then we see that it turned out to be not what we imagined. But why is it so?

It is because, in fact, the nature of desires and fulfillments does not work in such a way. True and constant fulfillment is only possible from the yearning, not from the fulfillment of the desire. The will to receive was not created in order to be filled, but rather in order to develop above it the longing for love and bestowal.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/19, Deficiency For The Greatness of the Creator
1 Minute 16:55

How To Become Immortal?

Question from Facebook: You say that a person can be immortal and he does not have to die to see the Creator. But man is material, and as long as he lives, this cannot be. For this to happen, we need to leave our body and join the Creator with our soul.

How can this happen if you say that dying is not necessary?

Answer: The fact is that the human body has nothing to do with the sensations of our world. It is purely an external appearance and nothing else. Therefore, it seems to us that we feel the material world through the five bodily sense organs.

In order to experience the upper world, we need to develop five spiritual senses. The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with their development and explaining how a person can begin to sense the spiritual world. So dying is unnecessary.

Question: Do you promise people immortality if we unite and develop our spirit?

Answer: Undoubtedly! This is not a promise, but a spiritual technique, and it is in fact realizable. Today, even in our world, you can meet people who have come to the attainment of the upper world and perceive the world as eternal, immortal through this method.
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From KabTV’s “Answers to questions from Facebook,” 3/10/19

How Are Jewish People Able To Obtain Such High Positions In Government, Media, Academia And Hollywood Given The Anti-Semitism They Have Faced? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How are Jewish people able to obtain such high positions in government, media, academia and Hollywood given the anti-Semitism they have faced?“

Anti-Semitism actually helps Jews succeed in many areas of life since it pressures them to outsmart, outwork and outcompete others.

In addition, Jews experience disproportionate success because in addition to their corporeal root in this world, they embody a spiritual root. The spiritual root of the Jewish people comes from their ancestors becoming Jews in ancient Babylon some 4,000 years ago. Abraham gathered Babylonians from all walks of life according to a spiritual idea, to rise above people’s divisive drives of that time and reach “love your neighbor as yourself.” The attainment of this state is what made this gathering of all kinds of different people “Jewish” to being with (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

Therefore, due to once experiencing a spiritual state of unity, that special connection with the spiritual force of nature remains latent within the Jews till today. Jews themselves don’t know that they possess such a force, but they do, and this additional force is the reason for their disproportionate success in many fields. Especially in areas involving innovation and invention, the Jews are particularly sharp, which stems precisely from their inner connection to nature’s hidden unifying force.

Building A United Nation

Baal HaSulam, The Nation: Similarly, the national love in the individuals of a nation is the basis of the independence of every nation. This is the only reason for which it continues or ceases to exist.

For this reason, this should be the first concern in the revival of the nation. This love is not presently within us, for we have lost it during our wandering among the nations for the past two millennia. Only individuals have gathered here, without any ties of pure national love among them.

Today we see clear confirmation of these words. The riots organized by the Ethiopians and the ultra-Orthodox demonstrations indicate that we have not built a common foundation for the whole nation. This is a huge problem that the State is to blame for. This is a national task that must finally be addressed.

How is it possible that after 70 years of the existence of the State of Israel we are witnessing events that shock everyone. We think that the situation will rectify itself, but it will not happen. The special work must be done in this “assembly of exiles,” which is the population of Israel, in order to turn them into one nation. Otherwise, it will not happen.

Special education is necessary. Imagine how meatballs are made, how many ingredients need to be added together: meat, bread, onions, eggs, garlic, herbs, and spices. When all this is combined together, it becomes a delicious meatball. But if something is missing or even if we try each ingredient separately, it is no longer tasty. That is exactly what is happening here.

We all need to go through such a “meat grinder” so that it will squeeze out of us all the foreign culture brought by each one from their country of origin and build a new culture from us. But where will it come from? If you just mix all the cultures together, you will get a salad that is impossible to eat.

We must choose only what applies to the people of Israel. Only love for one’s neighbor as for oneself and unity belong to them. This is the principle by which Abraham organized the people. Today again we need to organize our people the way Abraham once assembled them from the Babylonians who came to him.

The same task is before us today, the same work that our forefather Abraham had. If we do not do it, then this is the result. Everyone has talked about it starting with Ben Gurion, but no one has done anything. They did not have a method to awaken the need for unity in the people so that everybody would pray and ask to be given the force of unity, which must come from above. After all, this force is not here.

It seems unrealistic, but only in this way we can build a united nation. There is no other way.
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/19, Building The Future Society

What Does It Mean To Be Jewish In The 21st Century? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it mean to be Jewish in the 21st century?“

There is indeed a lot of confusion regarding what it means to be Jewish, where Jews come from, and what is the true identity of the Jewish people. Most Jews themselves would be unable to tell you where they originated, why Arabs are also considered as Semites, and why there are Jews in such places as India, Pakistan and Africa.

Today, it’s customary that if your mother is Jewish, then you’re Jewish. However, this wasn’t always the case. At one time in history, Jewishness was passed down through the father.

In our world, Jews are considered to be a group of people who went into exile 2,000 years ago from ancient Babylon. Due to the dispersion of the Jewish people around the world, they have no culture, language, country or center of their own. Moreover, if you say that the Jews’ country is Israel, then note that the State of Israel has only been around for the last 70 years, and many Jews also disagree with Israel being their country. Therefore, if you ask both Jews and non-Jews who Jews are, you will hear no two same opinions.

The Jewish people are a strange phenomenon in humanity. They are like a stone in humanity’s shoe, something that increasingly presses for a solution. Also, the topic of Jewish identity is never raised in a serious widespread manner because it would awaken many problems among the Jews living in different countries and cultures. Therefore, it is a global-scale problem, and raising it means to ignite a massive flame around the world. Arabs everywhere would immediately leap onto the opportunity to deal with it, disagreeing with the definitions of Jews being the sons of Abraham. They also disagree with Jews and Muslims being brothers, as is written in the Torah, which describes Jews and Arabs coming from a single father. Another problem is that there are many conflicts in definitions of Jews in Christianity, and therefore, it also isn’t raised from that perspective.

The general atmosphere surrounding such a question is: Why raise the question about Jewish identity if it would create many more problems than we already experience in our world? So people from all nations, religions and cultures, including Jews themselves, generally don’t touch it. Specifically in our time, it is best not to awaken such a question.

Perceiving The Hidden Realm Of The Universe

When we deal with the spiritual world, we need to understand that we are entering a new realm where none of our regular organs of perception are of use. We must develop the organs of perception in a completely different way instead of the five corporeal sensory organs: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and tactile senses.

These five senses also exist in animals, partly in plants, and even slightly in non-living objects of our world. We usually call the bodily organs of sensation “animate” because we ourselves are on an animate degree. There is nothing offensive about it; it is just a particular level.

But in the spiritual world, they are completely different because they represent feelings above our desire to receive, to feel, to enjoy. These senses work in the opposite direction: to give, to delight, to fill, and therefore we do not understand them.

The transition from the sensation of our world to the sensation of the upper world consists of the fact that we must pass the so-called barrier—Machsom. There, there are other five senses, which are built on the opposite principle—on bestowal. The more I give of myself, the more I feel the world outside me.

That is, the corporeal sensory organs are built on the fact that they give me a sense of the world within myself, how much this world can enter into me, into the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, and tactile sensations. But when I start coming “out of myself,” I feel a world that has no impact on my feelings. It does not have to enter into me or fill me. I don’t perceive it in the measure of my internal qualities, but only outside of myself—just as it is.

Here a completely new state appears, which is called the attainment of the upper world. It is based on two qualities: the quality of the screen, that is, the rejection of all reception for myself, and the transfer out of myself when entering others.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 4/7/19

New Life #1131 – How To Have It All

New Life #1131 – How to Have It All
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

We live in a time when a person’s ego wants to grow without limites, to be everywhere, to taste everything, to know everything, to feel everything, and to have it all. When a person sees that he is unsuccessful in doing so, he comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah, which teaches him how to achieve it. The condition for realizing your desires is that your intention is to benefit others. This correction opens up everything. Whoever wants to be protected from harm has to direct himself to the benefit of others and treat people well.

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From KabTV’s “New Life #1131 – How to Have It All,” 6/27/19

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What’s The Difference Between Being Anti-Israel, Anti-Zionist And Anti-Semitic, And How Do You Know Which Is Which? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the difference between being anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic, and how do you know which is which?“

Today, many American and European Jews are anti-Israeli. Moreover, today many Jews themselves, including those in Israel, are anti-Semites in how they relate to other Jewish groups scornfully.

“Anti” in and of itself is a Jewish characteristic. Why? It’s because the root of this people is spiritual: “spiritual” meaning that the Jews are a people founded on the spiritual idea of “love your friend as yourself,” and thus being Jewish means seeking unity (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

The spiritual unity of the Jews is one where they united among each other and with the single force of nature that governs everyone and everything. Therefore, whoever wishes to identify with that force is considered “Jewish,” and whoever doesn’t have that approach or whoever hasn’t received such an upbringing is against it.

Therefore, every Jew, to the extent of his lack of knowledge of what is true Jewishness—which isn’t religion, but a search for unification—is both anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli.

In relation to anti-Zionism, see my answer to this question: Are anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism the same? How are they similar?

The Call To The Correction Of The World

There is no one else beside the Creator, and therefore, everything comes from above: both awakening from above and awakening from below. The only difference is in how we feel this awakening: each one personally or all together in general. Personal awakening is not associated with a certain period; each person receives it in due time; according to his place in the common system, he begins to advance, to study, and comes to the group.

But there is an awakening from above that acts on all the people of Israel and carries them through different periods, favorable or difficult. It all depends on our compliance with the upper governance. The present time is special and if we do not wake up and change in the way that the upper governance requires of us, then we will feel very bad.

We must not shut our eyes, calming ourselves with the fact that everything seems alright so far. The sage sees the future state, so now is the time to create a rehabilitation program for both the people of Israel and the whole world. Similarly, in medicine, huge amounts of money are invested in the development of diagnostic devices in order to identify a dangerous disease in advance. If this is not done and the disease progresses, it leads to tragic consequences.

Therefore, we need to accelerate time and look in advance for what needs to be done to save everyone and also fulfill the purpose of creation and bestow pleasure to the Creator. Of course, “There is none else besides Him,” but where am I, where is my personal participation in this? My awakening from below is included in “there is none else beside the Creator,” but because of the lack of adherence with Him for the time being, we do not know how this is combined.

Unity is necessary for the whole world, and this means that it is necessary for the Creator because He dwells within the nation. We believe that we can attain the Creator personally, individually, but this is an egoistic demand. If we are to achieve revelation, then we will be the last ones after the whole world. After all, the correction of the world is the call of the time; we live in the last generation.

If we want to bestow to the Creator, we must take care of the correction of the whole world, and this is possible only through the people of Israel. You can act on Israel only through our group, through my ten, through the personal participation of everyone. If we build reality along such a pyramid and we influence it, each one and all together, then we will succeed.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Newspaper, “The Nation”
1 Minute 1:40

Beyond Time, Space And Motion

Question: The original sources say that the reality Kabbalists describe is beyond time, space, and motion. What is this reality and where is it?

Answer: Time, space, and motion are the parameters of our world, which is called the imaginary world. They appear in us because of uncorrected egoistic desires.

If we correct our desires, raise them to the level of bestowal, altruistic actions, then they lose those properties due to which time slows down to the level of our world, suddenly physical space appears, etc.

Therefore, concepts of time, space, and movement depend only on our egoistic desires. As soon as we rise above our egoism into the spiritual world, these parameters will disappear; they do not exist there.

In the spiritual world, time is a change in our desires from less altruism to more. Space and motion are the movements from lower, weaker qualities of bestowal to stronger ones.
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From Kab TV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 11/26/18

New Life #1128 – Women And The Essence Of Life

New Life #1128 – Women and the Essence of Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The need for internal convergence is particularly evident in women. The nature of women is to relax, absorb, test, and connect to the eternal flow of nature. As women, we must find out what nature wants from us and understand the goal toward which we are advancing. As the world attempts to confuse and seduce us, we must continually ask ourselves “how am I realizing life on a higher level and discovering the essence of life?”
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1128 – Women and the Essence of Life,” 6/25/19

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Real Success: Bring The Knowledge Of The Creator To The World

The people of Israel returned to the land of Israel, but if we are still overwhelmed by thoughts about corporeal fulfillment: food, sex, family, money, power, and knowledge, which absorb all our attention and obscure our view, then we are still in exile. Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 gave us a strong blow because we unexpectedly acquired territory and additional population that we were unprepared for, and did not know how to deal with it.

This led to a big stagnation in our technological development since we acquired a lot of cheap, unskilled labor force, and we did not need to develop new technologies in construction and other fields. It really slowed us down. It took a lot of time to overcome this blow and begin to develop technology and a new lifestyle under these new conditions.

The Six-Day War was a big blow to Israel because we were too proud of our success and strength. We should have reached the revelation of evil, but it has yet to happen. The entire history of the State of Israel demonstrates how the Creator teaches us time after time that all our successes, achievements, wealth, and intelligence do not help us. As a result, we still find ourselves like sheep surrounded by wolves with nowhere to hide.

This is what our entire history teaches us, and we will again soon feel that the whole world is up in arms against us. Today we feel at the top due to our technological power. But this is only to raise us to the very height, as if on a roller coaster ride, and then push us down. It will be a very harsh attraction because the whole world plunges into darkness and goes out of balance in this descent. It has no buffering systems for the huge leaps in finance, international relations, etc. This is on the background of a complete global interdependence of each one upon everyone. The situation is very alarming.

According to the connection between root and branch, there is no better place for correction than the Land of Israel. Therefore, we are obliged to work here. Jerusalem, Safed, and Tiberias are all zones of special spiritual influence. Therefore, there is no doubt that it is easiest to implement the correction in the Land of Israel.¹

Baal HaSulam writes about the split in the people of Israel that led to the collapse of the Second Temple: the ideological dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees regarding the need to work for the Creator. But nowadays, there is no other struggle except for a place in leadership, for power, money, and that is it. We are at the very end of the process of the descent of generations. Therefore, in our generation there is no longer an ideological struggle, but simply everyone fights for his position, for his influence on voters. This has nothing to do with ideology, and the Kabbalists take no part in this.

Today we have reached the last point in the descent of generations. There is no lower place to go—what remains is only world war and global crisis. There is no way out; now we must find a way to climb. The only thing we need to understand is where it comes from, that is, what the purpose is, where it leads us, and what should be done to use everything that happens for the benefit of the people of Israel (if it is really Israel, meaning aspiring to the Creator).

This will bring us to the realization of evil from which we will understand what the opposite, good state should be and how to achieve this good precisely from inside of the evil. We are aware of the need for our connection and the fulfillment of the gift we have received: the Torah, the science of Kabbalah, the method of unity. There is nothing greater than unity. All the slogans about “love your neighbor” should be practically embodied in us today.

Our egoism is the only enemy that prevents us from achieving a good corporeal life and steals our eternal, spiritual life from us. Because of egoism, we are born like animals, and we live and die like animals. Our body dies and decomposes without our having developed a soul, and it turns out that our lives were lived in vain.

Life is given in order to develop a soul during our existence in this corporeal world. The soul is a part of Divinity from above, and therefore, it is eternal. The desire to bestow to a neighbor, which is outside of my personal interests, is being like the Creator, and therefore, it is eternal. We must develop this desire as much as possible.

We must understand that we are flying down the roller coaster, on the steepest descent with a wall at the end we will crash into. So it is worth thinking about how to escape from this global Holocaust, when all the nations of the world will turn against Israel.

Salvation is only in the unity of the people of Israel, in their readiness to unite in order to give unity to the whole of humanity. We must be as close to bestowal as possible, at least in the corporeal world. This implies mutual assistance, fair distribution, and all the conditions of the future society, even if it is for egoistic reasons. If we do not do so, it will turn out very bad for us. We do not want to bring the world to such physical suffering—it would be better if this decision were to come as a result of the realization of evil before the blow comes.²

The crisis within the people of Israel primarily lies in the fact that no one feels that they are in exile. On the contrary, everyone considers it as freedom because Israel is a strong, prosperous country. Everything is great and we have what to be proud of. They do not understand that these are not the parameters Israel should be measured by. This is not about corporeal success. The state in which Israel now exists is called “destruction.”

It seems that everything is fine and Israel is the country of the most advanced high technologies. But we exist inside nature, which is all closed and global. Nature is the Creator, and we act against Him both in the spiritual and in the corporeal sense. From the point of view of spirituality, we are completely opposite to the Creator because we behave in the most egoistic way, worse than all.

Our desire to enjoy is so developed that we manage to overtake the whole world. But in fact, we have been given power in order to succeed in exactly the opposite way: to serve the whole world, to bestow, to teach, and to become a connecting channel between the Creator and the created beings. Instead, we use our egoism in order to develop hi-tech and extract as much money as possible for capitalists and for armaments. Meanwhile, children are neglected and families are being destroyed. This is a completely wrong approach because we are going against the general program of nature.

Day after day, we become increasingly remote from the common nature, and therefore, we will lose on all counts. First of all, this relates to general nature, that is, to ecology and the attitude of the nations of the world toward Israel. We feel how anti-Semitism is growing daily, crossing all borders, and we are becoming increasingly “stiff-necked people,” actually living not in the Land of Israel but in Egypt, enslaved to Pharaoh.

We have become very successful in developing all the corporeal values in the world: in hi-tech, armaments, and the economy, using our egoistic qualities and inflating them to such an extent that we have become the very first in using the egoism. It turns out that we have reached the stage of the Pharaoh. Suffering will inevitably come soon because we have built such a world. However, we can turn this looming tsunami into a gentle and benign wave. It will not be a tsunami wave that washes away the whole world and drowns everyone in it, but a positive wave of, say, chocolates and flowers.

Let us start with the realization of evil and stop seeing ourselves as successful. Because of this, we find ourselves in a deep hole. Israel is obliged to give the world the method of correction, the knowledge of the Creator, and bring everyone to the final corrected state.³
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”

See The Mosaic Of The Soul

Question: If we disagree with what the Creator does with us, how can we deal with such a revelation of the Creator in us?

Answer: Correct yourself to a state of agreement. In principle, nothing changes. Do not expect our world to change! Only your attitude toward it will change if you exert effort. This is the meaning of the “correction of the world.”

It is said that the world acts as it always did. You will change until it is revealed to you as perfect, eternal, infinite, and absolutely corrected. This is our life and our correction.

So decide whether you will correct yourself or not. The world is unchanging. On the contrary, to the measure of your progress, to the measure of your ability to correct yourself, it will be revealed to you as more and more uncorrected so that you compensate for external faults with your internal corrections and see that in fact the world is corrected.

For example, now I see the world uncorrected. I look at a person who sits in front of me, some sleepy guy, constantly rubbing his eyes; I do not like him. If I suddenly discover that this is the closest, most dear person to me, a very warmhearted, special friend, then I begin to see him completely differently. It all depends on my state. There is no other way.

As soon as we discover that all together we are parts of the same soul, no one can be ugly, nasty, and repulsive there! Therefore, I will suddenly begin not only to tolerate everyone, but to love them, not to neglect them, but to attract them.

Imagine, we are all parts of the same soul. Where would you escape to? On the other hand, why “escape”? I need to understand that all these parts are necessary for me. They, complementing each other and being correctly connected, suddenly appear as a mosaic that brings my soul together.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/27/19