Scandal Over The “Panama Papers”

Question: Over eleven million confidential financial documents were leaked from a Panamanian legal firm. It turns out that through this firm businessmen, politicians, and billionaires evaded taxes. Among them were 72 past and present heads of government. Apparently six hundred Israeli companies and 850 Israelis were involved in these machinations. Do you think that they will be prosecuted?

Answer: I can’t imagine who would prosecute them! No matter what happens, the powerful people of this world, the bank managers and the heads of state, have closed major accounts that are officially registered under the names of their children and grandchildren, and nothing can be done about this. It is impossible to undermine them. They will put a few minor officials in their place who will be suddenly pushed aside and removed from their positions and they will take the money.

Comment: Still we have a president and a previous minister in Israel who are accused.

Answer: For the time being a full fusion of an oligarchy with the government in Israel has not occurred, in which one covers the other. And even if you are my political or economic adversary, we still have a private agreement that in these areas, I won’t interfere, and you won’t either. This hasn’t settled in Israel yet so within this country with lots of scandals this will gradually pass.

When I arrived in Israel 40 years ago, it wasn’t possible to consider giving someone a bribe. But in the past 40 years we have become like all the rest of the world. As a result, in part, it will lead the world to realize that we must get rid of our egoism, to rise above it. 60% or 70% of what we earn goes into a black case and disappears down some hole, which provides no benefit!

If all were revealed: how much humanity earns, how much is spent its benefit, and how much it causes harm, it would be found out that 90% are harmed!

Question: Does money have a spiritual root?

Answer: Money is a covering on desires. If I can work with my desire correctly, meaning that I use it for good deeds, then this desire is covered by a screen called “money” (Kesef), “yearning” (Kisuf). The “branch” of this characteristic in our world is money. Gold is a harmful metal, which symbolizes greed, a craving for profit, pure egoism. Gold is Malchut, (silver) money is Bina.

Question: Will this greed destroy humanity?

Answer: Eventually it will lead to the recognition of evil and humanity will need to get rid of it.

Question: Does this mean that the rulers of the world cannot be punished? Is there some kind of punishment for them?

Answer: There cannot be any punishment. We are working in a single egoistic system and the one in a high position, can do whatever he wants. Even if someone else were to stand in his place, it would be the same.

Question: Does this mean that there is no way out of this situation?

Answer: The only way out is through education, compulsory education for all executives.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/4/16

New Life #555 – Life In Perpetual War

New Life #555 – Life In Perpetual War
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

After so much suffering it’s time to ask why is this happening to us? After all, there is nothing accidental in nature.

Summary

After not finding secular and religious answers, we understand that the answers are found in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Peace depends only on us; it doesn’t depend on any other factor. Only we can bring a positive force into the world.

Two forces operate in this world, positive and negative, give and take. The evil force constantly grows by itself. Adding the positive force hidden in nature requires work only the Jews can perform.

In ancient Babylon, our father Abraham discovered a method for doing this, the method of love, “Love covereth all transgressions” (“Proverbs” 10:12). Thousands gathered around him, and that is how the people of Israel were created, living according to: “What is hateful to you, don’t do to your friend” (Talmud Babyli Shabbat31a), and “You shall love your friend as yourself” (“Leviticus” 19:18).

If we want to build the people of Israel in the land of Israel, it is up to us to return to this spiritual source. The systems that oppose Israel will stop only when we understand that the key to world happiness is in our hands, the positive force is in our hands. If we fight for connection between us, each one against his ego, we will be spared from external wars.

Like soldiers, we are strong, we are ready for self-sacrifice. The problem is that it is not clear to us what our destiny as a people is. If we fight with the inner enemy, with the negative force that separates us, the external enemy will disappear.

We see that today people are leaving the country; it is not clear to them what the point of their living here is, in this nation with all of its problems. It is up to us to reveal the positive force that is concealed in nature that will connect us. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us this method.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #555 – Life In Perpetual War,” 4/16/15

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Moses

The first hero of the Passover holiday is Moses, the spiritual leader. This is a special quality within a person that leads him to the exodus from Egypt.

If we don’t talk about Moses as a quality within a person but as a character, then he wasn’t a born leader. Moses is a person who is closed within himself, who wants to achieve, to be aware of the surrounding world, his characteristics, himself.

Moses lived in the palace of Pharaoh and used all the benefits that were due him as a prince. In the palace they respected him and he learned the Egyptian wisdom, magic, everything that was used in Egypt in his time in the construction of the pyramids, in perceiving the universe through astronomy and everything that had been developed back then. Moses was a scientist and so all this was very attractive, but he was not connected either with the Egyptians or with the people. He was simply a prince.

When he was in exile from Egypt, the Creator called for him to return to Egypt and he obeyed, but without any personal intention. When he returned to Egypt, he went to his grandfather, Pharaoh, and his stepmother, Batya, as an opponent, standing before them and saying to Pharaoh, “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1). But Pharaoh opposed this and argued, “The children of Israel are living here with their families and cattle; they manage their households and have been mine for quite some time already. They don’t intend to go anywhere.” Imagine a situation in which we apparently demand from President Obama, “Let the Jews go to Israel.” And he would answer, “I don’t intend to free them; I need them for the development of the economy, science, and commerce. Try approaching them and listen to what they will answer.”

After all, the Jews were living very well in Egypt. They used all the benefits even more than the Egyptians themselves. So it was impossible to approach them in any form, even from the point of view of Pharaoh and from the point of view of the Jewish people themselves. The people of Israel were fat, lazy, and under the influence of traditions, culture, science, arts and entertainments of the Egyptians. They had everything they needed, including huge pastures for their cattle. One can say that they lived in the best place in the world.

The moment Moses began to ask Pharaoh to free the people of Israel from Egypt, they began to feel the evil side of Pharaoh: blows, pressure, oppression, taxes, great persecutions, and pogroms. Generally, everything that we have seen throughout the history of the Jews suddenly began to appear in Egypt with the people who had been totally pampered in every way! And so the attitude of Pharaoh towards Moses became sharply negative. In spite of this, Moses went to Pharaoh according to the command of the Creator and demanded from him, “Let my people go!”

Moses was afraid of Pharaoh and the Creator, and didn’t know what to do. He tried to convince the Creator that he was tongue-tied and stuttered, that he was not a natural leader. But the Creator replied, “I know whom to choose, so onward!” And he went. Moreover, when the Creator said, “Let’s go together. I will harden the heart of Pharaoh so much that it will be preferable for us to go together.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah talks about the deepest and innermost characteristics of a person, which he must discern within himself specifically through the pathway of spiritual development in which a person begins to search within himself for the characteristics of Pharaoh, Moses, the Creator, the people of Israel, Egypt, and all the rest of the images in the Torah.

Ultimately, he reaches a state of absolute darkness when he understands that he cannot leave Egypt, he doesn’t want to leave it, and doesn’t know what forces will make it possible for him to do this. And then at night an immense power, a storm breaks out, lightning and thunder in the spiritual sense. The person is found in a terrible panic! But he runs after the Creator.

The exodus from Egypt happens in haste; from where and to where is unknown. What matters is that the Creator wants this, and the person carries out His will.

There is nothing else! What matters is what the Creator wants and that we follow Him because it is impossible to get our bearings by using our feelings or knowledge—neither through the heart or the mind. Only the upper force shows a person where he or she should go. The Creator leads you by a pillar of fire or cloud, and you go; it cannot be in any other way.

To be completely purified from Egypt and take everything above your reason and feeling, you must leap into the sea! The sea is a terrible state in which it is up to the person to take a step absolutely contrary to all of his emotions and reason! After that, nothing is left of what was his! He exists completely pure. In this state, a spiritual birth happens. After full purification of emotional and physical memory, a new life begins.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/11/16

Pharaoh

Question: What does Pharaoh represent?

Answer: Pharaoh is an immense force. I will not talk about him as a personality because practically this persona doesn’t really exist. The wisdom of Kabbalah examines Pharaoh as the immense egothat is created by the Creator. It develops and absorbs everything into its egoism and is ready to devour the entire world.

It is insatiable and gradually becomes revealed as humanity develops. The more we strive to do something in the world and get something, the more it devours, leaving us no hope of changing the world for the better or a happy future. On the contrary, the world only becomes worse and worse.

More and more people are dissatisfied with life. We once thought that we could get along, but today we don’t. Today people no longer feel secure in the most distant villages, not economically or from the aspect of material existence. Now people are so tied to the whole world they cannot feed themselves. This is a paradox, but a farmer cannot feed himself from his own land.

Pharaoh (egoism) swallows this, because it brings us together so much that we cannot be independent from others. It makes our world integral, global, and interconnected, a small village in which we all depend on each other. And here we see that we cannot handle it.

Egoism leads us to the need to be properly interconnected with one another. This means that Pharaoh himself, by transforming our world so that it becomes mutually connected, brings us to a state where we hate it and then we transform our world into another one with good connections between us. Otherwise we will not be able to continue living. But then Pharaoh continually directs us against unity. So on the one hand, even though he awakens in us a desire for unity and acts so that we cannot live without making the right connections between us, since otherwise we cannot provide ourselves with even the most essential things, and on the other hand, he won’t let us unite. This contrast sums up the merit of Pharaoh.

Therefore he is called an “angel of the Creator.” He was created by the Creator like the two-faced Janus, where from one side he obliges us to connect and unite and on the other side won’t let us get closer to each other. So we begin to understand that we have no other way out besides rising above it, escaping from it. So we run away from him. This means that the flight from Pharaoh, from our nature, from our ego, is theExodus from Egypt.

This is not easy because it is still up to us to discover all this within us. Our time is unique. We are now discovering everything that the Creator prepared for us in the form of Pharaoh. Pharaoh is now being revealed among us in the form of the global and integral world, and at the same time, individually it doesn’t allow us to exist in accordance with this integral world. So we need to respect Pharaoh because he takes us out of Egypt.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/12/16

The Ten Plagues Of Egypt

Question: What are the “Ten Plagues of Egypt”?

Answer: The purpose of creation is going to the next level of existence, the upper world. While living on Earth, we have to feel the upper world, to see the system of management, the Creator of everything that exists in this world and is hidden from us today.

Egoism, which is our foundation, the enormous force of nature that we must transcend, is what “runs” us. On the one hand, the ego is drives us upward; on the other hand, it will not free us. After all, if it were to lead us as usual within itself through all the configurations and structures through which we have passed in the course of human evolution—the primitive era, the era of slavery, the feudal era, the capitalist era, and the socialist era—it would not be clear toward what we would continue.

But egoism puts a “wall” in front of us, we cannot move further; so the current phase is called “the last phase of human development on Earth.” In other words, egoism is requiring us to become rounded, to unite on the one hand, but on the other hand, it won’t let us unite. Therefore, the only solution we can come to is to transcend “Pharaoh” (egoism), above Egypt to the next level of existence, the higher system of management.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about. This is what we must reach. The “Ten Plagues of Egypt” exist in order to completely break away from egoism. This is because our egoism consists of ten parts, which are the ten Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Each one of them “portrays” for us a particular type of existence within the ego.

We must gradually release ourselves from these ten Sefirot, these ten modes of existence. This happens when we begin to see that each one of them is finite, incomplete, leading to a blind alley and giving us no hope of continuing our existence within the ego.

The final phase of each of these ten levels, these characteristics, these parts of our ego, is the ten plagues of Egypt. After them it is no longer possible to remain within the ego. Instead we must get up and run away from it blindly. On the present level, we cannot see the next level. So the flight from Egypt happens at midnight, in total darkness.

The ten plagues of Egypt are in fact a separation from our egoism, when we run away in the dark and it is unclear where we are going. But the main thing is that we are running away from it! And so gradually we develop before us a new life, a new world, new eternal, infinite, and perfect new expanses.

Question: Is it possible to get along without the plagues?

Answer: No. In fact it is not pain but insight, enlightenment. The plagues pass over our ego and in these states we rise above it!

Comment: It turns out that if I identify with the ego, I feel the plagues. But if I rise above it, i.e., identify with Moses who is leading me forward, I don’t feel them.

Answer: This how the plagues function. They obligate a person to rise above them, and then he stops feeling the ego. If the person is elevated above it, he stops feeling it. Then a relaxed, new life begins.

So in fact, the ten plagues are not really plagues. They are the highest gift that the Creator gives a person, pushing him out of egoism forcefully. So, let’s go, let’s run away from it and gain a new world!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/12/16

We Can Teach Everyone The Torah!

Question: Why do you believe that you are allowed to teach the Torah to people who are not Jewish?

Answer: According to the Torah, the goal of creation is to bring all the created beings to adhesion with the Creator. Adhesion is attained by the correction of the ego to love, as it says: “love thy friend as thyself; this is the great rule of the Torah.” Jews are a nation that has to fulfill the Creator’s rule first, and then teach it to the whole world. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah says and what I believe. I will refer to the following items:

The source of the prohibition

Contemporary Rabbi Yoel Shwartz, says: a non Jew who studies the Torah commits a sin. It is forbidden for Jews to teach the gentiles the Torah. The prohibition for a gentile to study the Torah is first mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud: Rabi Yochanan said “A gentile who studies the Torah should die, as it says, ‘Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.’ (Deuteronomy 33:4). This is our legacy and not theirs!” (Sanhedrin 59:1).

“It is forbidden to teach the Torah to gentiles” (Hagigah, 13:1). Rambam quotes Rabi Meir as the authority, “a gentile who studies the Torah should die, and they are allowed to study only what is related to the seven commandments” (Mishna Torah, the Laws of Kings 10:9).

Shmuel Abuav who lived in the 17^th century said: The Christians use the Jewish writings in order to prove the reliability of their faith and it is therefore forbidden to teach them the Torah.

However, there are quite a few examples of famous rabbis who taught the Torah to gentiles. A teacher of the German researcher of Judaism Johan Raichlin was the composer of the classic commentary of the Bible, “Our Story.” Such people knew theHalacha and couldn’t consciously break the rules of the Torah!

Rambam said that it forbidden to teach the Torah only to the gentiles who don’t acknowledge the Godly nature of the Torah. “We can teach the Torah to Christians because they believe that our Torah was given to us by God through our teacher Moses (Pe’er Ha’Dor, 38).

The Talmudic scholar of the Middle Ages Menachem HaMeiri said that if a gentile studies the Torah out of curiosity, it is not forbidden to teach him. This became relevant in modern times when the question of whether it is allowed to teach Jewish matters at universities arose.

The American Rabbi Jacob Weinberg said that when a gentile studies the Torah for academic purposes, there is no prohibition to do so. He was a lecturer at the non-Jewish University of Giessen in Germany who taught the Torah and the Talmud.

In the 19^th century the Lithuanian, Rabbi Israel Salenter dreamt of turning the Talmud into one of the subjects at non-Jewish universities and at that time only gentiles studied at universities.

Teaching mixed groups

Halacha authorities such as Jacob Weinberg, Isaac Klein, Moshe Finestein, Ovadia Yoseph and others claimed that the prohibition to teach the Torah refers only to a group that is totally non-Jewish, but it is possible to reach the Torah to a Jew in the presence of gentiles even if they can also study.

According to Rav Finestein a non-Jewish slave of Raban Gamliel, Tabie, is mentioned in the Talmud as a great expert in the Torah. Tabie acquired his knowledge when he was present in the lessons given by Raban Gamliel to his Jewish students. The sages of the Talmud had no problem teaching the Torah even when there were non-Jews among the listeners.

The seventh Rabbi from Lubavich welcomed the study of the Torah by modern means of communication and in modern languages although this form of teaching included many non-Jewish readers and listeners.

Constraint: The prohibition to teach the Torah to non Jews is cancelled if there is a government decree because disobeying such a decree might endanger the Jewish community. Today any attempt to separate Jewish and non-Jewish students in academic institutions might arouse negative responses. Thus a Jewish lecturer may believe that he is constantly under the government decree which nullifies the prohibition to teach the Torah to non-Jews.

Is there a prohibition to teach the Torah to non-Jews?

Rav Isaac Ilinburg (1550-1623) noticed that his Italian colleagues taught the Torah to non-Jews. He emphasized that neither Rambam nor other Halacha authorities ever mention the prohibition to teach the Torah to non-Jews.

He thus concluded that parallel expressions in Masechet Hagigah are not the Halachaat all. He said that he was not ready to publicly declare that only for fear of the reactions of his colleagues.

Rav Arie-Leib Ginsburg (2695-1785), the author of The Lion’s Roar, holds the same opinion.

Summary:

History provides us with plenty of examples of non-Jews who studied the Torah and used their knowledge not in order to harm the Jewish nation but in its favor, in order to contradict false accusations against Judaism.
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Cleaning The Vessel Of The Soul

Question: Are we to blame for our suffering?

Answer: No, the Creator who created evil inclination is to blame. This is what He said: “I created the evil inclination, and I gave a method to correct it.” But if we manage to transform evil into good, we will obtain the same level of existence as the Creator Himself.

Everything in our world is arranged so that man himself would unearth all the problems of his nature, his evil inclination, and he himself would discover how to correct it. Moreover, these problems can be easily overcome; all we need is to just systematically and correctly use the method of correction.

If people start asking these questions, it means they are ready to start using this method, and then they will gradually understand why everything is created this way and not otherwise. They will realize that the Creator is a special force of nature that includes in itself the entire world, the entire nature, and all upper levels, which are unreachable to us yet, but which we will reveal.

By correcting our ego, deliberately created by the Creator to be so savage, enormous, universal, we become the masters of the entire nature: both of our world and all other worlds. We rise to the level of eternity and perfection, even without falling into death, but simply by rising to the next degree.

Nowadays humanity has reached such level of development when the question about the meaning of life arises in most people in the world. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it means that we are ready to discover the upper world.

Question: So why do we suffer when the thought of creation bring contentment to man?

Answer: It’s because we don’t correct ourselves. If we know how to do it and start entering the method of correction, we will immediately feel better and better, climbing the steps of the benevolent ladder.

Comment: In this regard there is a very interesting legend. A man exhausted by thirst is standing beside a stream with clear spring water and trying to fill a dirty glass. The water seems to him unpatable, bitter, he can’t drink it and he curses the dirty stream (in this way we often curse the Creator who sends us suffering).

When he finally understands that the problem is not water, but his glass, everything changes. He cleans the vessel, the taste of the water changes, and he realizes that there always was spring water in his glass while he was suffering.

Answer: Yes, this is our life. If we manage to draw correct forces from it, we will be able to constantly enjoy it. And if not, then vise versa.
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Happiness And The Pursuit Of It – It’s Bad!

In the News (mignews): “Scientists claim that people who are happy and carefree live less than people who are dismal because a high degree of feeling happiness is crazy and makes a person take unnecessary risk. The researchers found that happiness and even the desire for it – it is bad, it can hurt the psyche, poison life and even reduce its duration. This is according to experts from Yale University in the United States, from the American University of Denver and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This is confirmed by the collected factual material. … Books that give advice on how to become happy are also a bad influence. Readers begin to pursue happiness, suffer failure and as a result feel worse. Scientists advise that one should stop being concerned about happiness and this will bring true happiness.”

My Comment: That is how we become aware that it is a justified but unfulfilled desire that is optimal for existence. The Creator created it so specifically for us to attain the goal of creation.

The desire for fulfillment will never be fulfilled. Above it, we aspire for the unlimited greatness of the Creator, His infinite comprehension, and in this yearning we attain happiness! Kabbalah described the conditions for attaining happiness almost 6,000 years ago…
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