Congress: Joining The Common Flow

Question: How can desires be added together? Even for bricks, we need cement. What connects us together since we are so different?

Answer: We all are egoists, but each has a point in the heart, and we want to connect them into one big point. This is our aspiration to the Creator.

At that, our egoism remains below, and our aspirations to the Creator are above.

If we rise above our egoism to a certain level, then there the spiritual potential called a Kli (Vessel) is revealed; that is, the tension between the aspiration to the Creator upward, and the aspiration to ourselves downward.

We form our Kli depending on this potential. However, the question arises whether this Kli is enough to reveal the Creator in.

Question: Does it mean that the bigger the rejection is, the greater the potential? That is, by and large, it tears me apart.

Answer: Not only you, but the entire group. If you are in the ten, then there should be ten such states. Then the Creator will be revealed in them. The main thing is the common point (red color in the drawing), the Creator. We constantly need to hold on to it.

Question: So, is the potential much more vivid for those who come to the congress without desire, with great doubts, but then overcome them?

Answer: Of course. Therefore, we need all people: with different potentials, with different desires; the main thing is that they can join our common flow.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/19/17

The Vicissitudes Of The Book Of Zohar

Question: How was the Book of Zohar written and how long did it take?

Answer: Ten Kabbalists, the authors of The Book of Zohar, wrote in a cave called Idra Raba, which exists until this very day.

According to The Book of Zohar, one of the authors spoke, another explained and clarified, and a third wrote down what was said. They had no disagreements because they were as one single desire, one single soul. They described all the possible states of all the individual souls that ascend and connect into one soul called Man, Adam, in a hundred of volumes.

The Book of Zohar was concealed for a long time and was discovered by chance. Its pages were found in a market. It turned out that they were used to wrap different food products. Whatever was found became accessible to the public. The attempt to find the other volumes did not yield the desired results. In the middle of the 1940’s, The Book of Zohar was revealed by Baal HaSulam, and he began to write his commentary on it.

This is a very special book considering its origin and its fate, in the vicissitudes of the people associated with it, and with what happened to the people who had it because there was only one copy of The Book.

2,000 years have passed since it was written, and still anything associated with The Book of Zohar is yet to be explored: where are its hidden parts and what happened to them. We are yet to discover all that and to explain it. I am sure that everything will be revealed with time.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/5/17

JPost: “Comment: Between Dershowitz And Stone, Dershowitz Is Pointlessly Correct“

The Jerusalem Post published my new article “Comment: Between Dershowitz And Stone, Dershowitz Is Pointlessly Correct“

To change people’s feelings about Jews, we must approach with honesty the trope that if anything goes wrong, it’s the Jews’ fault.Share on facebook Share on twitter

Screenwriter, film director, and producer Oliver Stone is a cultural icon. He has won multiple Academy Awards and has contributed to the making of dozens of iconic films that have helped shape our views on war, love, politics, and other weighty matters. Oliver Stone is also an antisemite.

Alan Dershowitz is a lawyer, an author, a gifted speaker, and a cultural icon in his own right. Alan Dershowitz is also a staunch supporter of Israel. When Dershowitz heard that Stone had blamed Israel of meddling with the recent US election, he challenged Stone to a debate about whether or not there was truth to his statement.

Mr. Dershowitz has been making the case for Israel for many years, and his support is heartwarming and impressive. In 2005 he conducted an epic debate with Jewish Israel basher Noam Chomsky at Harvard University, and he works tirelessly to support Israel on every front.

Still, judging by the exponential growth in antisemitism in the US and around the world in recent years, these efforts have had zero impact. However reasonable the arguments, they will never taper antisemitism because hatred needs no reasonable arguments to justify itself.

Jew-Hatred Makes No Sense

Throughout history, Jew-hatred has worn different attires at different times. Jews have been accused of poisoning wells, baking matzos with the blood of Christian (and now Muslim) children, warmongering, usury, slave trading, conspiring to dominate the world, and spreading disease (from the Black Death to Ebola). Jews have also been accused of manipulating the media to their needs, disloyalty to their host countries, harvesting organs, and spreading AIDS.

Moreover, Jews are often accused of conflicting “crimes.” Communists accused them of creating capitalism; capitalists accused them of inventing communism. Christians accused Jews of killing Jesus, while dissidents of the church accused Jews of inventing Christianity. Jews have been labeled as warmongers and cowards, racists and cosmopolitans, spineless and unbending, and countless other contradictions.

Clearly, Jew-hatred is irrational and deep.

To change people’s feelings about Jews and the nation state of the Jews, namely Israel, we must appeal to their feelings, to their hearts, and not to their minds. To do that, we must address the old trope to which Dershowitz referred in the post I mentioned earlier: if anything went wrong, it’s the Jews’ fault.

Hatred from Without and from Within

As is evident by the irrationality of Jew-hatred, the Jews are not an ordinary nation. Since its inception, its most prominent proponents have been the target of aggression and enmity. Abraham was thrown into a furnace after his own father, Terah, brought him to be tried by the king. Terah did not protest the verdict. Joseph was thrown into a pit full of snakes and then sold to slavery by his own brothers after they relinquished their initial plan to assassinate him. Moses was chased by his adopted grandfather, Pharaoh, and was often criticized by his own people.

After Moses, when the people of Israel were established as a nation, they suffered internal conflicts that were just as bad, if not worse, than the enemies they encountered from the outside. The First Temple was ruined due to idol-worship, incest, and bloodshed. Even before it was ruined, the Hebrew kings Ahaz and Hezekiah both looted the Temple and handed over its treasures to foreign kings.

At the time of the Second Temple, Hellenists—Jews who wanted to install the Greek culture and belief in Israel—hated their brethren so fiercely that they fought them to the death instead of the Greeks.

In the end, self-hatred inflicted the ruin of the Second Temple and an exile that lasted two millennia. Worse yet, Tiberius Julius Alexander—commander of the Roman armies that conquered Jerusalem, ruined the Temple, and exiled its people—was an Alexandrian Jew whose own father had donated the gold and silver for the Temple gates. In fact, before Tiberius Alexander stormed Jerusalem, he had obliterated his native community of Alexandria, causing “the whole district [to be] deluged with blood as 50,000 corpses were heaped up,” according to Jewish-Roman historian Titus Flavius Josephus.

In my previous column, I mentioned more of the countless cases where Jews turned against their own people. It turns out that we are unique not only in the relentless, irrational hatred we suffer from without, but also in the profound odium that Jews feel and display toward their own brethren. This begs the question: What is it about Jews that makes them the object of such pervasive loathing?

Who Is a Jew?

The book Yaarot Devash (Part 2, Drush no. 2) writes that the word Yehudi (Jew) comes from the Hebrew word yihudi, meaning united. When Abraham the Patriarch first established his group, he did so on the backdrop of an outburst of egoism in the Babylonian Empire where he was born. The book Pirkei De Rabbi Eliezer (Chapter of Rabbi Eliezer) describes how the builders of the Tower of Babylon “wanted to speak to one another but did not know each other’s language. What did they do? Each took his sword and they fought each other to the death. Indeed, half the world was slaughtered there, and from there they scattered all over the world.”

To help the Babylonians, Abraham developed a method for connecting people. He realized that selfishness was intensifying faster than people could contain it. Therefore, instead of trying to restrain their egos, Abraham suggested that they shift their focus to connection. In this way, he hoped his countryfolk would rise above their egoism and connect.

Although Abraham was expelled from Babylon (having survived being thrown into the furnace), he continued to circulate his views as he wandered toward the Land of Israel. Gradually, writes Maimonides in Mishneh Torah (Chapter 1), Abraham, together with his wife, Sarah, gathered tens of thousands of people, all versed in uniting above their egos.

This special characteristic of Abraham’s students—to make unity and brotherhood the means as well as the end—became the essence of Judaism. This is why Old Hillel told the man who wanted to convert: “That which you hate, do not do unto your neighbor; this is the whole of the Torah” (Shabbat, 31a), and why Rabbi Akiva asserted, “Love your neighbor as yourself; this is the great rule of the Torah” (Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim, 30b).

We became a nation only when we vowed to be “as one man with one heart,” and immediately after, we were commanded to be “a light unto nations”—to circulate our special unity to all. Just as Abraham intended to do in Babylon, when he wished to spread unity indiscriminately, we were commanded to be a light unto all the nations—to spread unity throughout the world.

Therefore, our nationhood consists of two tenets: 1) to be united as one man with one heart, 2) to share the method for achieving unity with all of humanity. If we do not abide by these two rules, we are not Jewish.

Since these two principles have been the essence of our peoplehood since its inception, any accusation that the Jews are inflicting harm upon the world, such as the trope that Dershowitz mentioned—that if anything goes wrong, it is the Jews’ fault—is a (usually unconscious) statement that the Jews are not Jews. In other words, they are not projecting unity and brotherhood, but rather the opposite.

In some cases, the sensation of antisemites that Jewish egoism is the problem is so intense that they can even verbalize it. German philosopher and anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach wrote in The Essence of Christianity: “The Jews have maintained their peculiarity to this day. Their principle, their God, is the most practical principle in the world—namely egoism.”

If this is what we are projecting, is it any wonder we are hated? We may have given ourselves amnesty from the “verdict” of being “a light unto nations,” but the nations have never given this to us. Their accusations, the high moral standards by which they judge Israel and the Jews, their admiration and their fear speak for themselves. It will not help us if we try to be like them; they will not accept us as such. We have been, are, and always will be expected to be a beacon of unity, “a light unto nations.”

Until we unite above our hatred just as our ancestors did millennia ago, we will continue to be the world’s only pariahs.

No compelling argument, conclusive proof, or hard evidence will convince the Oliver Stones in the world that they are wrong. In their hearts, they know that they are right—that Jews are to blame for every bad thing that happens. For Mr. Stone, that bad thing is the election of Donald Trump as president. But even before Trump was elected, Stone found reasons to dislike Jews, proving once again that hatred will cling to any pretext to justify itself, regardless of objective truths.

Therefore, if we truly want to oust antisemitism, we must do the thing we want the least: unite with our brethren to the tribe—our fellow Jews—above all of our disputes, alienation, and hatred.
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Alone In A Crowd Of A Billion, Part 4

The method of integral education does not prevent a person from developing his or her inner individuality, rather it allows a person to do so. No one invades this inner world.

But along with this, one also knows that it is possible to feel the world, reality, from a higher and broader perspective, above isolation and individualism, but only through a connection with others.

When this occurs, he begins to sense a world parallel to this one. No one argues that we are all individuals, unable to move like hammered-in nails, but it doesn’t need to disturb anyone because we are building a level of connection above it.

Question: Will a person still feel lonely then?

Answer: A person will not feel lonely because he will be expressing his individuality in connection with others. These two levels—the personal, individual level, and the common, integral level—will exist parallel to each other and will support one another.

Then, the personality of each individual will begin to be expressed even more brightly and distinctly, but this will not lead to negative consequences and loneliness. If each is created with their own unique qualities, then when these qualities are expressed even more brightly, it will only be of benefit to others and never to their detriment.

Two of the most important milestones in child development is the emergence of personal individuality and, above it, mutual interdependence. As it is said, “Love covers all transgressions.” In this context, a person uses his individuality with the goal of correct connection with others.

Nature builds us in such a way that if we use my individual qualities for connection with others with the intention to fulfill them, and others do the same with respect to us, then this is a point where we are not just connecting mechanically as cogs in a machine, but are creating a perfect system.

When we correctly connect to this system, we begin to feel the one who is spinning us—the upper force of nature. And then we begin to interact and spin in harmony with this force; in other words, we achieve union with it.

Question: Why does this painful sensation of loneliness appear within us at this point in time? What does this stage of human evolution mean? This did not exist to such an extent earlier in history.

Answer: We completed our “linear” evolution and now must add to it “circular,” integral development. With all the individuality and uniqueness of each, we must discover how to correctly use our special abilities for positive connection between us and build a perfect system. This is the final stage of the program of creation.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/4/17

How To Relate To Daily Life

Question: For people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah, how do they relate to daily life?

Answer: Daily life flows by itself. What is in it? A person needs to make a living and raise a family, all of this being an additional encumbrance to the study.

For a person who studies Kabbalah, the attitude toward daily life becomes completely different. His perception of reality changes. He begins to understand that everything comes from the Creator and passes over and through him purposefully to the surrounding world so that he will be able to connect the entire world and himself with the Creator, with the one and only force that manages creation.

In other words, in all a person’s thoughts and feelings, in all that he says and does, the Creator is found. It is nature that motivates a person in such a manner. Only a point in the heart is given to a person, which seemingly has no connection to the internal and external nature at all. But with the help of this point in the heart, he can go out from the physical world, divert his attention from everything, and contemplate everything from the side.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/29/17

The Solution For The Immigrants—Education

Comment: 240 immigrants recently drowned on their way to Italy. According to statistics 5,000 immigrants drowned last year. This means that the immigrants are still infiltrating Europe. Despite the limitations that Europe has set, they keep flowing in.

Answer: Thousands of emigrants from the Middle East and Africa are crossing the European border daily, and it is impossible to stop that flow.

It is a wave of history. It is the way it should be until Europe truly begins to colonize Africa and the Middle East in a kind way, restoring the correct mutual relations between people there, opening universities and schools, supplying necessities, and teaching locals so that they will be able to establish the correct developed society.

But how can the Europeans do that if they themselves are egoists? They colonized Africa in a wrong way; therefore, they reap such results.

Question: So you are in favor of a different sort of colonization via education?

Answer: I am only in favor of training and educating people locally, in favor of creating a proper kind society in their motherlands where they should live and feel good, and will not immigrate to Europe.

Question: Do you believe that it is possible to restore places that are totally ruined like Syria and Lebanon?

Answer: If the West invests resources and energy in this process and realizes that this is indeed the way they should position themselves, then it is certainly possible.

It is much costlier to try to adapt the immigrants to the conditions in Europe than to help them rebuild their lives in their natural home. There, it is at least hundred times cheaper, than any action taken in Europe.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/27/17

“And All The People Shall Say, ‘Amen!’”

Torah, Deuteronomy 27:16: …And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’

“Amen” is translated as “truth,” “verity,” and expresses our inner agreement, the inner decision, to do some action with all our strength.

Therefore, the people are obliged to say “Amen” before the entrance to the land of Israel. This is an agreement with those conditions without which they can’t enter, because to enter means to rise to the correction of completely new egoistic desires and intentions that are now being revealed.

At every stage the people repeat “Amen” because every time they enter into a completely new correction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/21/16

The US Is Quitting The Paris Agreement

In the News (New York Times): “WASHINGTON — President Trump announced on Thursday that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, weakening efforts to combat global warming and embracing isolationist voices in his White House who argued that the agreement was a pernicious threat to the economy and American sovereignty.

“Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon the agreement for environmental action signed by 195 nations is a remarkable rebuke to heads of state, climate activists, corporate executives and members of the president’s own staff, who all failed to change his mind with an intense, last-minute lobbying blitz. The Paris agreement was intended to bind the world community into battling rising temperatures in concert, and the departure of the Earth’s second-largest polluter is a major blow.”

Answer: Of course! As usual, this is what it is all about, stealing from one and transferring to another.

Since we are all products of our egoism, we don’t act out of concern for the Earth and global warming; we act out of thinking how to steal as much as possible for ourselves at the expense of others. Western European countries especially profit at the expense of America, and this is the reason that Trump objects to the agreement while all of Europe disagrees with Trump.

Question: Is there a problem of global warming?

Answer: Naturally. There is a process of global warming, and what is more, another ice age is coming. These two processes accompany each other.

Nothing will work unless we balance the whole system. If humanity does not bring itself to a corrected state and does not become one harmonious ecological system with nature, nature will surely be further destroyed as a result of the destructive impact of human society.

We exist in our egoism on the highest level of nature. The human level comes after the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature.

This is the reason that when there are disagreements between us, wars, conflicts, and hostility, they all impact the lower levels of nature and accordingly disrupt their balance. Consequently, there is global warming and other problems that we invoke in the world, like the pollution of the oceans and atmosphere.

This means that the garbage and the filth of our egoism are smeared all over the Earth, inside it and around it. It all happens because of us.

The moment we begin to correct ourselves by establishing good connections between us, we will see that suddenly everything will begin to gradually clean up and reach the right balanced condition until we reach the state of “and a wolf shall dwell with a lamb…and a small boy shall lead them,” as stated by the prophets. And so it will be.

Question: When will people understand that human egoism disrupts the general balance?

Answer: Let’s hope that it will happen before the ego destroys everything. We also have to take into account the upper governance of nature itself, which, influencing us, will make it a little easier to realize that there is no other way than to correct ourselves.

Nature is leading us by blows, while we do it by disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah, by trying to explain things, by trying to convince people and show them that there is no other way. The degree of problems and suffering that people will have to undergo depends on their egoistic stubbornness.

We, on the other hand, will try to do everything in our power. I think that we can go through this process properly until we reach the next good state.

Question: How will all the corporeal problems disappear? After all, huge islands of garbage are already floating in the oceans.

Answer: Nature will instantly swallow all the plastics and metals that are scattered all over the oceans and in space. We cannot imagine what forces are embedded in nature. It is not about our interfering with these forces, but about spurring and summoning their right intensified influence, and then there will be no problems.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/5/17

Reward and Punishment In Our Lives, Part 3

Question: We live in this world like little children who feel punished when their mother won’t give them candy and a can of soda because she knows that it is bad for them. Who is this mother?

Answer: The mother is the general system, nature, the laws of nature, within which we exist. The system responds to us immediately, systematically, training us step-by-step to develop a correct relationship with reality and gradually allowing us to get to know her in order for us to open our eyes and see the true reality.

It is similar to the way a small child sees only a tiny part of the world, a very flat and limited picture. He doesn’t understand the system that governs a nation or the world or how all this is functioning.

Even grown people often do not know how the government is structured, how it functions, and on what principles its systems work. For the majority, what impacts them personally is what concerns them the most, for example, the garbage that has not been picked up by their house.

As a person develops and matures, he becomes familiar with the system of government in his country. Similarly, we must become familiar with the systems of nature that control us.

Question: Mother is symbolic of the warmth, love, care, and everything nurturing and kind that exists in a person’s life. Why then, looking at my life, don’t I see that the world behaves toward me with such caring and love? Rather the opposite, I receive blows from every direction.

Answer: We think that nature’s love must manifest in a form that we understand. But, are we representing her to ourselves correctly? I think that if there is a goal I must reach in my development, then a mother is obligated at all times to care about that which keeps me aimed at this goal.

Because my continuous state within my egoism is very bad and I need to leave this evil and come to good as quickly as possible,  the mother prepares all the necessary conditions for this to happen. She does not push me with force and doesn’t hurry me with a whip, but constantly presents me with opportunities to advance. And I need to understand her!

The problem is in that we do not understand how nature is controlling us. As soon as I begin to understand this and seek to enter this process, then everything will change.

Because I am trying to discern: Where is the mother, what does she want from me in each moment, in each state, what is she moving me toward, what do I need to do right now, and most importantly, what should I be thinking about? How am I supposed to perceive the world and relate to the unfolding events, while at all times adjusting the way I am relating to the world and evolving my consciousness?

If I always think that there is none other than the upper force, that is, mother nature is constantly attending to me, always wanting the best for me, then I will unerringly advance in the right direction. It is possible that on the path I will sometimes make mistakes and hit the walls of my limitations: either on the left or on the right, but overall I will be moving forward. I will be under vigilant control and will reach the goal.

The mother is concealed, but gradually I uncover this system as a result of my collisions with her and analysis of my actions: What did I do correctly, what not? In this way I will come to understand what are rewards and what are punishments.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 2/2/17

The Loved Letter

Question: Which letter among the letters of the Hebrew alphabet pleases you most of all?

Answer: I think it is the letter “Hey.”

It is the fifth letter in the alphabet and it symbolizes the final Kli, which has been fully corrected, the soul that is ready to begin to absorb Light.

Other than that, Bina and Malchut are indicated by this letter, and together give the letter “Yod,” and it is the tenth.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/22/17

Generation Gap, Part 3

Question: On what grounds are friendship and connection between generations possible? Are there such things that do not depend on time and age?

Answer: Only the soul that is eternal does not depend on time. All the rest is temporary. Only the soul can be common between different generations because it is really one for all. And so for the soul, it does not matter what generation you are from: baby boomers, X, Y, Z, or A.

The soul will always be one for all future generations; it is higher than time and higher than life and death. In all generations, from the period of the dinosaurs and even the Big Bang, when we existed in the form of tiny particles of desire, until today and until the end of the correction, the soul will be common to all.

Therefore, there is no other common interest or another basis on which we will be working together, supporting each other, and needing one another, but only in the development of the soul.

Question: Does it mean that the soul is something unchangeable and eternal that unites all the generations together? But what is the soul and how does one develop it?

Answer: The soul is a special desire of a person to feel not within oneself but outside of oneself. Such a desire can be developed in you by working in a group using the method of Kabbalah, which allows you to rise above your own egoism. And then I will see the world not warped by my selfishness, how I perceive it usually inside me, but what it really is—outside of me.

I pass through a small group, as through a filter, leaving my egoism in it and I begin to see the world, not clouded by my selfishness. This is a completely different reality, which is called the spiritual world. Perception of the spiritual world is what my soul is.

To develop the soul means to develop in oneself the ability to exist above one’s egoism. Egoism is the desire to absorb everything within myself, which prevents me from feeling the world outside me.

Question: It turns out that the relationship between parents and children is divided into two areas. One is external and is simply a material security: to feed the children, to dress, and to provide everything necessary for their existence. But there is still an inner connection that transcends the material. Is there no gap between the generations in this internal area?

Answer: Inner connection is more objective, not tied to the person himself. Of course, there also are differences between us, depending on how much one is able to get out of his egoism, to rise above it, and begin to feel the higher reality.

Question: What allows us to connect in this area with the younger generation as opposed to the material realm?

Answer: There we all meet, outside the spiritual world, beyond the anti-egoistic filter. We leave on it all our petty egoistic whims that are related to the animal stage and to the stage of the man of this world. The animal stage is a desire for food, sex, family, and human desires are money, power, and knowledge. And all this we drop and remain with the desires of the soul.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/18/17

Pleasure From The Congress And Question About The Meaning Of Life

Question: Can the pleasure from the congress erase my question about the meaning of life?

Answer: No, this will not happen because everybody thinks about the meaning of their existence. On the contrary, with each congress people begin to ask this question more and more, and increasingly feel the need for an answer.

However, during the congress they have failures and disappointments: “Everything vanishes, there is nothing in this, why am I here?”

Then suddenly, everything starts to appear and becomes clear again. And this is wonderful! If this happens during the congress, it is great.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/19/17

Zuckerberg’s Speech at Harvard

In the News (Harvard Gazette): “He dropped out of College to chase a dream and returned 12 years later as leader of a company that has changed the world. His goal now, he says, is to make that world become a better place in which to live, work, laugh, love, and connect, and to encourage others to do the same.

“’Today I want to talk about purpose,’ he said. ‘But I’m not here to give you the standard Commencement about finding your purpose. We’re millennials. We try to do that instinctively. Instead, I’m here to tell you that finding your purpose isn’t enough. The challenge for our generation is to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.’ …

“That’s a critical goal in a time of everyday change, said Zuckerberg. Increasing automation means the loss of jobs that had helped a generation find its voice and frame its values. Similarly, community connections, which also helped connect and define prior generations of Americans, are slowly slipping away, often leaving people bereft of meaning and paths forward. …

“Zuckerberg outlined three ways that Harvard graduates and others can help foster a world where everyone has a sense of purpose. First, he suggested big projects that get lots of people involved. …

“’It is time for our generation-defining great works. How about stopping climate change before we destroy the planet, and getting millions of people involved in manufacturing and installing solar panels? How about curing all diseases and getting people involved by asking volunteers to track their health data and share their genomes? … How about modernizing democracy so everyone can vote online, and how about personalizing education so everyone can learn?’”

My Comment: What jobs does he think it is possible to create? None! Where can we find jobs for seven billion people?! It’s just a piece of rhetoric.

A sense of purpose is necessary. But it is not a sensation, rather, it’s a vision of the goal, its understanding, not just a goal as a mirage.

Comment: He believes that we can create a goal, that we can do it.

Answer: Throughout all of history, a person created a goal, then discarded it, replaced it with a new one, and got it wrong each and every time.

Comment: Mark Zuckerberg is a young guy who set a goal and managed to achieve it, and now he claims: “You can do it as well!”

Answer: He wanted to get rich—and he did it. And what purpose does he impose on people using his Facebook? Does he think that people should have a goal that he imposes on them?

Comment: He believes that he has a free tribune…

Answer: What kind of free tribune is there here?! If you get into this machine, you’ll see that everything is smeared there; everything is aimed at moving people to a specific goal that would give him the biggest profit – and nothing more.

Comment: He says: “We need a society that focuses more on education that lasts a lifetime.”

Answer: Not on schooling, but on education. Nobody needs just knowledge, it has not yet made a single person happy.

Speaking of education, I mean the transformation of a person who, through proper education, reveals for himself not our world, but the upper world—a system of management. And then he sees where all of nature is moving and chooses how to act together with it in the best way.

Question: How would you explain to him personally what the goal is?

Answer: The goal is to get out of the borders of our egoistic nature, to turn yourself inside out. And this cannot be done through any tricks. And you cannot persuade others to do this either.

It’s necessary just to patiently explain to people for a long time until they understand that the future of mankind is to rise above our nature to its next level—the level of “Adam” (Man).
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 6/8/17

The Main Impression From The Congress

Question: I enjoy communicating with friends, but then I forget about all intentions. Is this such a disturbance?

Answer: There are different times: when I feel good and when I feel bad, when I forget and when I remember, and so on. They all add up together.

The main thing is not to worry. When you are at the congress among a lot of people, the situation itself constantly reminds you what you are participating in and what you are doing. You see, hear, and feel with your skin what is happening here. This is the main impression from the congress. The surrounding atmosphere influences you.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/19/17

Is It Possible To Influence A Person’s Perception?

Question: The more I listen to you, the more I understand that Kabbalah is Light. Through love of others, can people who are on a high spiritual level have an influence on a normal person’s emotional perception when he does not understand his spiritual state himself but only feels some kind of inner spiritual enthusiasm?

Answer: In fact, it is impossible to influence a person’s emotional perception because his spiritual state does not depend on his desire, but on his ability to rise above his ego.

Many people want spirituality, but are not ready to convince themselves that the meaning of a desire for spirituality is to rise above ourselves, above our ego. They are ready for anything except that.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/22/17

Reward And Punishment In Our Lives, Part 2

Kabbalists do not perceive rewards and punishment as the general public does; they view them as reactions to them from the system. This is why they calmly receive any criticism or accusation as the system trying to help them to advance.

They do not attribute it to some specific individual, but only to the general system. And so the accusations that may seem to another as punishment, to a Kabbalist represent the material with which to work until it is experienced as a reward.

Question: How can it be considered a reward when a person is accused or shamed?

Answer: For many years now I have also been criticized, accused of deceit and a desire for power. But I understand that this criticism does not come from specific people who have some kind of freewill, but from the system. And therefore, I must receive this criticism in order to feel myself in exile.

Their behavior is appropriate because they help me in my correction, and as I progress toward correction, I feel these negative manifestations as positive. And if I feel them as negative, it is only because I am still not corrected in my certain inner qualities.

In other words, rewards and punishments from a natural and egoistic perception are entirely opposite to what is perceived by one who desires to advance, and is, therefore, relating to them above his own egoism.

For this reason, people who want to free themselves of their egoism, perceive all negative criticism toward them as a gift, given to them in the form of an opportunity to rise and to turn punishments into rewards because this means that the system is paying attention to me, gently and with care, as a mother raising a small child and teaching him good behavior.

Question: Like a mother who gives her child healthy food instead of a can of soda?

Answer: Yes, to receive blows is very healthy. They should not trigger resistance or defensive accusations, but rather an analysis: What specifically is triggering me, what are these qualities, thoughts, and desires in me? All these I need to correct in the exact place where I am experiencing the blow.

This is precisely what I need in order to rise from my egoistic state. If I feel the blow there, it means that there is still a calculation for personal benefit and I need to rise to a higher-level calculation.

Question: But don’t you want to receive a positive reaction from others?

Answer: I want to receive a positive reaction as an indicator that this quality in me has reached correction, not because I want to see that others around me became corrected. It is written, “Each judges according to their own flaws”, so when I correct myself, I will no longer experience blows. The system is built in such a way that then no one will criticize or accuse me any longer.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 2/2/17

A Description Of Spiritual Communication

Torah, Deuteronomy, 25:11 – 25:12: If [two] men, a man and his brother, are fighting together, and the wife of one of them approaches to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she stretches forth her hand and grabs hold of his private parts you shall cut off her hand You shall not have pity.

In the Torah, there are things that cannot be explained in a rational way but only by connecting the spiritual parts of the soul, Partzufim, with each other.

And if a person does not know this, then all corporeal descriptions of spiritual communication look like medieval tales to him.

Question: What does it mean if men are fighting together?

Answer: This means there is no middle line, a contradiction. But this is not easy, we are talking about the levels of Aba ve Ima, Yeshsut. Everything happens inside a person.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/2/16

How Does One Not Become Confused In Spiritual Development?

Question: How does a person who has advanced spiritually not become confused between the various forms of perception? For example, on the one hand, a Kabbalist lives an ordinary life, but on the other hand, is involved with spiritual attainment.

Answer: At first there is slight confusion, but all of this passes quickly. If you study seriously, invest yourself in a group, and have normal relationships with the friends in a group, then you will not be confused by anything.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/29/17

Why Doesn’t Humanity Know Anything About Kabbalah?

Question: Kabbalah is a method of how to properly communicate between people. Humanity has been developing for thousands of years. Why doesn’t humanity know anything about this method at the beginning of the 21st century?

Answer: This has nothing to do with a person’s intelligence, but depends on whether the need to discover the reason for his existence, the question of what he is living for, has emerged in him. If he has a need for that, he arrives at the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Question: But why doesn’t a person know that? We have discovered so many things in our world, we have invented so many technological innovations, but we do not have any basic knowledge about the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Answer: A person does not need to know what he is not supposed to know yet. Therefore, Kabbalah was not revealed to the people until the 20th century, except to individual Kabbalists.

Even today, many people have no need to know about it yet. Only those who want to will be able to reach the wisdom of Kabbalah. The next intermediate phase will be when everyone aspires for Kabbalistic knowledge.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/29/17

Reward And Punishment In Our Lives, Part 1

Question: Every person wants to receive rewards for their actions in life, not punishments. But sometimes, even though we try with all our might, no matter what we do, everything turns out unfavorably and it is not even clear as to why. Is there some kind of connection between our actions and the results we experience in our lives?

Answer: This is not a simple question because the entire system is hidden from us. We receive rewards and punishments for all of our actions, but who knows what exactly is considered a reward and what is punishment for us?

Only one thing can be said for sure: We exist in a strict system of nature, and that is why each of our desires—and its use, act, word, or deed, each nuance of our behavior, unconscious or intentional, each thought—all affect the system, and the system responds to us.

We all exist as if in a web, and the problem is that we do not feel this web. But without a doubt, there is a reward or punishment for everything. This entire system is called “reality” or “world.” But, this is the real world, not the one that appears in front of our eyes. We are seeing just a small segment, a minute part of the actual reality.

It is impossible to imagine the entire system if we want to understand the meaning of our actions through the small part of this general system that we are able to perceive and call “this world.” This is why we do not know what responses our actions trigger. I do something and do not understand what kind of influence I have on the system, and likewise, I do not feel the action in response in its full and true form.

This is the problem of concealment. The entire system is concealed from us. Rewards and punishments are an incomprehensible and unknown area that we cannot investigate, and the more we study the system of nature with the help of all our sciences, the more we are convinced that we are entering ever more inner and deeper spaces that become even less comprehensible to us.

Nature does not become clearer to us, but rather even more clouded. There is no end to this depth. This is why it is unlikely that at some point in time we will uncover the nature of man with the aid of science. At one time, this was attempted through psychology, but very quickly we became convinced that this is not the way because we immediately plunge into unknown areas that do not yield to the strict scientific methods of investigation.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that we need to move away from investigating the outer world. This is because the outer world is an illusion that forms within us, within our five sensory organs, in response to our interaction with a minimal part of the system. Essentially, this is the tip of the iceberg, while 99% of this system remains unknown.

For this reason, it is worthwhile to concentrate our efforts on discovering the inner system of perception, in other words, to expand our sensory organs to such an extent that we will perceive and gradually reveal the entire system of nature. When we begin to uncover this system, we will feel what reward and punishment mean and what kind of effects our actions actually have, that is, which of them are good and which are bad.

We will begin to perceive the unfolding events more accurately. Considering that it is possible that today we perceive rewards and punishments as little children who think that sweets and a can of soda is a reward. But, we know that this is entirely not true and that it is a punishment for the body, a negative influence, not positive.

Therefore, everything depends on who is doing the judging. In other words, will we be able to rise to a higher level each time, like a mother with respect to the child who protects him from all problems and will not do anything that may be harmful? That’s why what seems like a reward to the child, to the mother, is a punishment.

In this way, we can always check ourselves with respect to the upper degree and, accordingly, examine and decide where, in reality, is the reward and where is the punishment. The science of Kabbalah enables us to do this, even though it requires us to exert a great deal of effort. But only in this manner can we discover that everything is actually the opposite, just like with children. That which seems to us today as rewards are discovered to be punishments, and seeming punishments are actually rewards.

We exist in a false system built entirely on our egoism, our desire to receive pleasure, and the entire reality, the entire system, behaves according to a completely different law, that of mutual bestowal. It is an integral system within which each element interacts in complete harmony with all other parts.

In this system, no one makes a calculation for their own benefit, but only for the well-being of the entire system, and that which is beneficial for the general system is called a reward for all its parts. That which is beneficial for one part that opposes the entire system is called punishment.

According to the degree of our development and correct connection with the general system, we change our understanding of rewards and punishments in such a way as to deem a reward that benefits the entire system, and that which is good for my egoism, in opposition to the system, I deem as punishment.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 2/2/17