Moments Of Descent

Question: A person who has fallen into the “pit” of his egoism does not believe that he has something in himself associated with bestowal. He sees nothing sacred in himself that would be associated with the Creator. How does one get out of this state?

Answer: There is nothing complicated here. If we have a group and we get used to uplifting ourselves and each other every day before the lesson and during the lesson so that all our qualities, views and connections are controlled and progress us, then we do not need great immense descents. If they do happen, however, practically all of them are manageable.

The descent should last no more than a moment. Not a split second, but just a moment that even does not have a period in time. Immediately, an ascent should emerge from it.

If I am in the field of the group and receive a personal descent, then it passes through me like an electric impulse and immediately the group pulls me out. The general field of the group works on me.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 4/18/18

How To Speak With Your Heart

Remark: A woman’s heart beats a little faster than a man’s: 70 beats for men and 78 for women. However, in couples living together, heart rhythms and breathing become similar, especially if their relationship is close. So claim scientists.

But even if people just do something enthusiastically together, their hearts become attuned to each other.

My Comment: This is the influence of people on each other. They become attuned if they work in the same team even if there are no close ties or shared hobbies, a single task or atmosphere.

The person’s influence on the environment is multifaceted. We see that people who live in a country acquire a common mentality, and if they live there for a long time, then they even acquire the features of those who inhabit this country. This does not depend on the people, but on the land itself where they live.

Question: How does it carry out in Kabbalah?

Answer: It is a very different story in Kabbalah. The fact is that by studying Kabbalah, we connect with each other not on the earthly level, where we live on the same land, breathe the same air, and become affected by the same, say, radioactive environment or some other parameters about which we do not even know.

We are passionate about our common goal and that is where we see ourselves. Moreover, we can see ourselves in this common goal only when we dissolve into our friends.

Therefore, in Kabbalah such union and interconnection develops that does not exist in any other form of human interaction. In Kabbalah, it turns out that we do not simply resemble each other, we create a system together, in which we become conjoined parts, and one cannot exist without the other. Therefore, everything is a degree higher here.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/2/18

New Life #96 – Pregnancy, Birth, And The Formation Of New Life

New Life #96 – Pregnancy, Birth, and the Formation of New Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

The formation of life within the mother is a wonder and from this process we can learn about the essence of life and the development of the human society as an integral society. The development of human egoism has separated us from the feelings of others, from nature, and even from our own bodies. The perfect human society is like a womb and we should try to build this type of environment for the developing child, the teen, and even for adults. Today, there is a new awareness of the power of bestowal and the need for connection to one’s environment. If we organize a positive human environment for one another, we will no longer suffer from problems during pregnancy and childbirth. As we fix the bonds between us, we will not need doctors since science will be within us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #96 – Pregnancy, Birth, And The Formation Of New Life,” 11/1/12

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Medium: “Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s Apology To German Jews Comes At Height Of Anti-Semitism In U.S. And Canada”

My article in Medium: “Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s Apology to German Jews Comes at Height of Anti-Semitism in U.S. and Canada”

Canada’s PM Trudeau meets with MS St. Louis survivor Ana Maria Gordon in Ottawa (Reuters)
Trying to escape the atrocities of Nazi Germany, around 900 Jewish refugees aboard the St. Louis ship were denied entry to Canada on June 7, 1939. It was one of the many rejected requests to obtain asylum in the North American continent, before the liner returned those on board to safe harbor in four European countries. Unfortunately, 254 of its passengers later perished in the Holocaust.

It was precisely the prosecution they were running away from, prompted by a series of events in Germany that put the lives of Jews in peril: the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, discriminatory laws targeting Jewish citizens, the Nuremberg Laws and the Kristallnacht riots by the Nazis in 1938. During the pogroms in Germany and Austria, more than 90 Jews were killed, hundreds of synagogues were torched, and roughly 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to death camps.

The St. Louis set sail on May 13, 1939 when the luxury liner departed Hamburg, Germany and arrived to Cuba as a stopover to the United States. But the Cuban government did not let the passengers disembark and kept the ship in port for days. The authorities refused to accept the foreign refugees despite the fact that they held legal visas previously acquired. Increased anti-Semitism and recent changes to immigration regulations in Cuba restricted their entry.

After the refusal, the boat sailed to the Florida coastline looking for American asylum, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt denied the appeal. The government argued that the refugees aboard the ship had to wait their turn as anybody else in a long line of asylum seekers. After the rejection, St. Louis started returning to Europe.

Aware of the humanitarian emergency, a group of Canadians unsuccessfully tried to convince their government to provide sanctuary for the refugees. The official response was that “no country could open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who want to leave Europe.”

The ship then continued on its course for the Old Continent and docked in Belgium, and from there the passengers were dispersed to France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. But during WWII, many of them fell under Nazi control, putting the refugees back in harm’s way. Many survived, but hundreds were sent to concentration camps and died.

“We apologize to the 907 German Jews aboard the MS. St. Louis, as well as their families,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said recently in the House of Commons. “We used our laws to mask our anti-Semitism, our antipathy and our resentment.” He added, “We are sorry for the callousness of Canada’s response. And we are sorry for not apologizing sooner.”

Trudeau’s mea culpa comes at the time when anti-Semitism is globally on the rise, with Canada and the United States being no exception. The deadly attack to the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg was not an isolated incident in the US. Anti-Semitism on campuses, on the Internet, continuous physical, unprovoked attacks in cities like New York, vandalism to synagogues and private homes are only some of the manifestations of the increasingly rampant hatred in America toward Jews.

With the establishment of the State of Israel, the Jewish people can feel that there is a safe haven. Indeed, on the verge of an unbearable crisis, no country, not even the US or Canada, will be unconditional to us, defend our interests, and protect us from anti-Semitic existential threats. The waves of modern anti-Semitism that now plague the Jews in Europe should serve as a reminder of our mission: to unite. That is our only life insurance.

We have no one to rely on but ourselves. Everything depends on us. The Jews are responsible for everything that happens in the world, whether for good or bad. As it is written, “There is no calamity that comes into the world but for Israel” (Tractate Yevamot62a).

In the meantime, we do not feel that way, but the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that is how the human communication system is built from within. The Book of Zohar compares the connection between Israel and the world to the organs of the human body: “Israel among the other nations, like a heart among the organs, and as the organs of the body could not exist in the world even one moment without the heart, so all the nations cannot exist in the world without Israel.” All the accusations, every persecution, every rejection, every rage and threat expresses the world’s demand that the Jewish people, wherever they are, should fulfill its role and lead humanity to happiness and a meaningful life.

Unconsciously, humanity feels that the Jews have the solution to all its problems and the key to its happiness. Global pressure on Israel is guided by the program of human development defined in nature, as Rav Kook wrote in the early 1900s: “In Israel is the secret to the unity of the world.” If so, sooner rather than later the Jewish nation must fulfill its role toward humanity and be a “light unto the nations” — to serve as a good example of a civilized society in which everyone lives in mutual solidarity and brotherly love above all differences. Only then will we sail to a new and good world. As our sages said, “If I am not for me, who is for me; and if I am (only) for myself, what am I. And if not now, when?” — Hillel, Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14

The Reward Of Perceiving Yourself As A Sinner

Question: Is there a sign that we did a good job and attracted the Light that reforms?

Answer: If we do a good job, then we find ourselves in a “pit.” This is both the result of good work and a reward. In order to come closer to the Creator, we must have a big uncorrected desire. We are given one only to the extent that we can handle it.

Instead of a medal, the reward is that we’re given additional egoistic desires that we fall into where everything becomes dark, irritating, and hopeless.

Feeling powerless, we want to get out of this pit. Not for ourselves, but for the sake of loveand bestowal. When we try to get out of it for the sake of others, then we transform this pit into a mountain.

Question: So, the reward is that one feels like a sinner?

Answer: Yes. This is a different system, a different Torah. Here, inner scrutiny is what’s most important.

Question: Is the lowest point of the pit a feeling that a person cannot move from the place?

Answer: Yes, it is similar to the prison-pit that Joseph was thrown into in Egypt.

Question: How was he able to break free if he could not come out on his own?

Answer: He convinced the baker, who was there with him, that he could be useful to Pharaoh. The baker, in turn, told Pharaoh about a person who knows the future. This is how Joseph got out of the pit. Here, we are talking about a very complex system.

You cannot fight the ego directly head on because it is our very nature. We have to constantly convince the ego that this is all for its benefit.

Pharaoh must feel the need for Joseph, and only then, from our inability to use egoism, we will get rid of it.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 4/18/18

A Step To The Left, A Step To The Right = A Step Forward

To build new organs of perception for revealing  the spiritual world means to build connections between us within which we can reveal the Creator and thus bestow pleasure to Him. This new perception is called “faith above reason,” the degree of Bina, bestowal, an altruistic intention.

Preparing us for such a correction, the Creator gradually hides the spiritual worlds, lowering them to the level of this world where the created being can exist, and breaks the common soul into many parts. At the beginning of correction, we must establish connections on the material level, that is, egoistically, within reason. Then, it is necessary to rise above it so that all our connections are non-egoistic and proceed not from the desire to receive pleasure, but from the nature of bestowal.

Simultaneously, we do not destroy our desire to enjoy, but on the contrary, we use it every time as an example, called “the left line,” and build the opposite above it, the right line, the desire for bestowal.

It turns out that it is impossible to rise to the degree of love and bestowal until hatred, rejection, division, and egoism in all of its guises are revealed. Above all this, we build the right line: unity, love, connection, and mutual understanding, as it is written: “Love covers all transgressions.” If there are no transgressions, there is no love. There must be both, one after the other, a step to the left and a step to the right.

First, we must reveal a deficiency on the left side, and from that deficiency, we will understand what its opposite should be, since there is no Light except that which emerges from darkness, and we can build the right line, the correct connection.

We currently do not know what the correct connection is. It has no prerequisites. Therefore, we only need to follow the Kabbalists’ advice because only in this way can we build new connections between us, which will be considered as spiritual. In these special connections, we will discover the power of bestowal and love called “the Creator.”

This is the person’s work. All our studies are a preparation for practical realization, for building connections at a different level, according to a different nature of bestowal in which there is not a drop of egoistic desire that rules us today.

We currently do not know what the desire to bestow is. No matter how many times we force ourselves, we will not squeeze anything but egoism out of ourselves. However, in essence, everything is very simple: we just need to resemble our desire to the Creator’s desire. If we try to enter our neighbor’s desire and place it above our own egoism, making it stronger and more important than our own desire despite its being opposite to our personal interest, we can learn to replace one nature with another. This is how we will be able to understand what it means to overcome ourselves and go beyond our opinion, our feelings, and our mind.

My own feelings and mind remain, but in addition I acquire the heart and mind of my friends, of the group. I follow my friends with my eyes closed because I cannot check and compare their desires with my own. You just have to give the “last shirt” to your friend, that is, his desire should determine all my actions.

I use my body as a machine within which the group’s desire operates. This is how I will advance until I discover that this is the Creator’s desire who is already in me, guiding me. While performing the actions, I will begin to attain Him because it is the Creator who acts within me. If I give Him this opportunity through my own free choice, I will reveal His nature, His character, His program, His approach within these actions, and I will become like Him. Thus, we achieve a merger with the upper force, and the Creator is clothed in the creation.

The time has come to practically get involved in this work more seriously and intensively. I hope that we have already taken the first half-step ahead.¹
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/18, Lesson on the Topic: “The Work Within Reason And the Work Above Reason”
1 Minute 0:20

New Life #95 – Healthy Lifestyle And Preventive Medicine

New Life #95 – Healthy Lifestyle and Preventive Medicine
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

True preventive medicine must encompass all areas of our lives including reducing stress, air pollution, public transportation within cities, as well as balancing relationships with the environment. Furthermore, it helps to show positive programs on TV, offer exercises in laughter at work, reduce pressure in educational institutions, and create workshops for developing good relationships in the workplace. The best sport is walking for an hour a day. Men require a sense of security like they’d get from a mother whereas women require warmth, listening, and understanding. If we balance the relationships between us, there will be no cause for disease.

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From KabTV’s “New Life #95 – A Healthy Lifestyle And Preventive Medicine,” 10/30/12

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BIEN: “Basic Income Should Join Forces With A ‘Social Network’ Revolution“

Basic Income Earth Network published my new article “Basic Income Should Join Forces With A ‘Social Network’ Revolution“:

It’s the start of a new month. You wake up in the morning feeling a rush of energy. The air is thick with a positive warmth. You’re immediately motivated and inspired with a thought that is, as if, circulating around everybody’s mind:

“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”

You immediately do what you need to do: go to the bathroom, put your clothes on, get something to eat, and check your bank account. You see your monthly basic income allowance came in. You get through all these necessities as quickly as possible because you want to start connecting to the means where you draw this positive energy.

That means is a social network.

It is unlike the social networks we use today. Ad-free. Conflict-free.

It is a social network thriving with friendliness and enthusiasm. Everyone feels equally important and responsible for creating it. Everybody actively expresses their opinion in discussions with no fear of judgment, criticism or argument. Everybody listens to everybody and does not simply interject with their opinions.

In exchange for the basic income allowance that entered your bank account a little earlier, you need to answer a few questions in this network. As soon as you see the first question, you understand why you had that thought earlier. The question is:

“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”

You click “Agree” on the network’s conditions, which state a few guidelines that all participants need to follow in this network. They ultimately boil down to one main condition: Leave your ego outside.

You agree to everyone being equally important; everyone actively answering the questions (which are made with everyone’s ability to answer them in mind); no arguing with, criticizing or judging others; focusing on the topic at hand, i.e., not veering it into unrelated directions; and listening to others speak as if it is you who is speaking.

These conditions are founded on a synergic principle where humans and nature are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. They aim at guiding us so that we don’t fall victim to our involuntary, egoistic impulses when we participate in creating a well-connected social atmosphere.

You connect to a video conference with a few other people, and you each state your answers to the questions. In addition to the first question—“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”—there are a couple more:

“What is one positive example that inspired me yesterday of someone contributing to society?”

“How can we help each other not fall victim to our automatic egoistic impulses that make us want to criticize, judge and harm others, and support each other in the construction of a positively connected atmosphere above our self-centeredness?”

Halfway into the discussion, you feel a new wave of energy stream through you. It is an energy latent in nature, which becomes revealed when people come together, regardless of their differences, and act, think and desire in a way that is adapted to nature’s integrality. We do not feel this in our current world of relationships.

After finishing the discussion, some people go to work, others stay in the network to participate in other activities, whether they be discussions, lessons or courses either to deepen their knowledge of nature, human development, psychology, or to improve life skills, relationships, parenting, health, personal finance, time management, or participating in support groups for a wide range of interests and life situations. You choose to participate in this network online, but the same activities also take place at local community centers for anyone who wants to participate in a more physical way.

All the activities in the network aim at both supplying what people need, so that they do not have any problems supplying themselves with life’s necessities, and beyond that, improving people’s connections and social skills. You meet new people all the time, and the atmosphere is always enlivening, supportive and constructive.

The tendency to support, benefit and connect with other people above our egoistic drives, is continually encouraged in this network. Likewise, values we currently hold become viewed from a new, unified vantage point. For example, competition in this network is based not on money, but on how much we can help and serve others.

Success in this network is not seen as building a personal empire despite, and on account of, other people. Instead, success is seen as a social construct, that we succeed together as a society, by connecting above our egoistic, divisive drives. By doing so, we get positive feedback from nature, a new surge of energy and motivation, by aligning ourselves with nature’s constant unifying motion.

This is how I envision a correctly functioning universal basic income. That is, UBI cannot work on its own. Simply giving people allowances without any incentives to succeed would stagnate society. In order for UBI to work, it needs to be provided in exchange for prosocial, connection-enriching participation, learning and development. People need tools, education, and encouragement to build a positively-functioning society in exchange for basic income. The idea of the “prosocial network” above is one direction the connection-enriching educational programs could take.

A Much Deeper and Wider Source of Motivation

In today’s capitalistic economy, people contribute to society with money as a leading motivator. Other drives, like respect, honor, fame, control, and knowledge are interwoven with money. That is, there is a price tag attached to every kind of social contribution.

However, considering a future where automation and robots will be given much of the workload, and where people get basic income allowances regardless of any work, we’re left to ponder serious questions:

What would people want to contribute to that society?

Why would they want to contribute to that society?

This is where the concept of universal basic income enters to support and propel the value shift necessary not only for UBI to work in the long term, but also for the foundation of a prosperous, connected society of happy and confident individuals, each motivated to contribute to the creation of a new thriving culture.

A prosocial resurgence combined with UBI has the power to make a significant gear shift in society. In order for that to happen, human relations, usually viewed as a byproduct of people’s professions and education, now need to be placed at the center of our attention. The motivation to contribute to society would need to change, from a monetary motivation to a purely prosocial, pro-connective motivation: one where we would regularly vitalize each other with examples of how we rise above our egoistic tendencies, thinking about, connecting to and benefiting other members of society. This would serve as a source of constant motivation, encouragement and ultimately, pave the way to a society of united, happy and confident individuals.

Today, there are thousands of people worldwide from all walks of life who feel the importance of jumpstarting the connection-enriching process in society, pioneering it even before the widespread launch of basic income. They are already engaged in learning, implementing and experimenting with the principle of positive connection above differences as the most valuable means to improve human society.

Anyone who is attracted to this idea of bettering the world by bettering human relations, and who wishes to participate in the learning and creation of a new prosocial, pro-connective culture, is welcome to learn its fundamental principles and basic concepts.

Commandments—The Laws Of Connection Between Us

Question: Should there be laws against empty talk or gossip in a group advancing toward the goal?

Answer: All the commandments only speak about the internal connection between us. In our world, however, they are described in the form of mechanical actions: a certain way of eating, washing hands, and other corporeal actions that a person performs with his body when working in the field or with animals, etc. In reality, all these desires either facilitate or impede our connection. We have to understand and realize them correctly.

Therefore, the revelation of our various qualities along the path to our unity, some of which are for and others against the connection, is necessary in order to align ourselves correctly. This way, we observe all the positive and negative commandments, understanding what to use for connection and what to abstain from, and we reach the goal.

This is the observance of the commandments, which is carried out with the help of the upper force called the Light, or the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 4/8/18

New Life #1061 – An Education In Critical Thinking

New Life #1061 – An Education In Critical Thinking
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

What I claim to be true is simply what appears to be worthwhile to me since people, naturally, only listen to themselves. In this regard, knowledge and truth are relative and subjective. The natural criticism that each of us has toward others exists only so that we will rise above our ego and discover the real truth. A critical discussion in the classroom shows children that there are multiple opinions. Group work done in a circle helps each child to open their hearts and ears to one another and discuss the opinions of others in a neutral or positive way. Special exercises can be taught in which children express their own opinions and then switch sides and defend the opposite opinion. Even more advanced work occurs when each child eliminates the hold he has on his own opinion in order to find a common opinion, which is the true opinion.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1061 – An Education In Critical Thinking,” 9/20/18

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Is There A Direct Connection Between Root And Branch?

Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot Part 1, Chapter 3, Histaklut Pnimit: Every thing that is not in Him and does not extend directly from Him, but is rather opposite to creation itself, will be against our nature and will be hard for us to tolerate.

Question: There are some qualities that do not come directly from the upper force. Since “There is none else besides Him,” then how is this possible?

Answer: All good qualities of the Creator manifest in us inversely in accordance with our egoism.

For example, there are no efforts in the Creator, that is, hard work is not included in our root. Therefore, we yearn to be in a state of absolute rest because any effort causes us suffering. I can expend a huge amount of calories but only in order to feel good. Then everything is fine.

Question: Is there a direct connection between the root and branch?

Answer: No, it passes through a kind of filter. This is the same screen on which everything happens in reverse. When the upper light comes to the spiritual Partzuf, the Partzuf makes a restriction on it, reflects it, calculates, and only afterward, receives the light.

The same happens during the ascent from below upward. In order to appeal to the Creator, we should act in the same way. This is immense work. We want the upper light, but we cannot make an effort for it.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/8/18

To Not Return To This World

Question: What part of the system determines how many times I need to die and be born? Can I influence this by studying Kabbalah?

Answer: Yes, you can. There is an article of Rabash called “What Is the Degree One Should Achieve in Order Not to Have to Reincarnate?” It depends on a person. Let’s agree that we do not want to return to this world anymore. We will complete everything that we need to complete in this reincarnation, in this lifetime, and say goodbye to this world.

Indeed, this world is the worst, the lowest of the worlds, a state in which any spiritual state is much higher, more honest, and better in comparison.

Question: What does it mean “to finish with this world”?

Answer: It means to become similar in our qualities to the next degree.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/17/18

Why Do We Have To Break Through Into The Upper World?

Question: Why do we have to break through to the upper world and we can’t enter calmly and quietly?

Answer: It is because the upper world functions according to a different coordinate system. There is no time (past, present, and future), space, and motion as in our world. There is nothing in the upper world that we can grasp and work with.

It is a completely different system of sensory and other coordinates. This is a breakthrough into another system, and therefore our laws do not apply there.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/24/18

The Right To Choose Where To Live

Question: Should we have the right to choose where we live?

Answer: A person’s main goal in life is to realize himself in such a way as to do the maximum for society with maximum efficiency.

Therefore, if after studying and examining himself a person feels that he can realize himself in a certain place for the benefit of humanity, then he certainly needs freedom of choice and the opportunity to leave his place and go where he can bring the most benefit to all humanity.

However, he should do so only after he truly saw and verified that humanity needs him in this particular place. This should not simply be his desire, not that it “seems” so to him. No, he knows the general law and, as Baal HaSulam writes, then he may receive special permission from people who understand where he is able to realize himself best. Then, of course he must go and act there.

Also, if a person has nothing to do and in a simple egoistic, material form drags himself from place to place for the sake of greater egoistic fulfillment in another place where he can use what others have prepared for him—this certainly does not make him useful to society. I do not think that this is justified.

That is why emigration today, for example from Asia to Europe, does not benefit either Europe or Asia.
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The Round Table of Independent Opinions, Berlin 9/9/06

The Times of Israel: “Sharp Rise In Anti-Semitism On ‘Kristallnacht’ 80th Anniversary”

The Times of Israel published my new article “Sharp rise in anti-Semitism on ‘Kristallnacht’ 80th Anniversary”

On a dark night in November 9, 1938, the Nazis murdered several hundred Jews, burned 1,400 synagogues across Germany and Austria, destroyed Jewish homes and businesses, and vandalized Jewish hospitals, orphanages and cemeteries. 1,000s of Jewish men, women and children were dragged into the streets, where they were beaten and humiliated. Its 80th anniversary is commemorated at a time when anti-Semitism in the world is escalating.

“Kristallnacht,” the Night of Broken Glass, unfolded around 6 years after Hitler assumed power and marked the beginning of the Third Reich, the systematic persecution of Jews, culminating with the Holocaust that claimed 6 million lives while the entire world stood by and basically did nothing to stop the carnage.

As humans do not seem to learn from the past, anti-Semitism is nowadays not a historical reference but a very current reality in Europe and the rest of the world, expressed as anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiments, attributed either to the extreme left or to the extreme right.

In light of the Kristallnacht’s remembrance day, Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said “It would be impossible to mark this seminal event in Jewish history without noting the frightening climate of anti-Semitism and xenophobia currently spreading across Europe and the United States.”

In order to trace the source of anti-Semitism, we will go back 3,800 years to the depths of the Israeli nation. Mesopotamia was the cradle of human civilization. Until then, everyone lived peacefully, without conflicts, until everything suddenly changed. The human ego—concern with personal benefit at the expense of the common good—erupted and caused the Babylonians to concentrate on themselves and exploit each other. At the height of the eruption, the local residents started thinking that they could control the world and built the Tower of Babel as a symbol of their egoistic aspirations.

One famous Babylonian, Abraham, refused to accept this situation. He searched for what was going on behind the scenes, discovered it, and developed a method to overcome and transcend the ego. Those who listened to him gathered and learned what he revealed. Over the years, his group of students grew and became the Israeli nation, whose uniqueness is the purpose for which it was founded: the implementation of the method to rise above the ego, the wisdom of Kabbalah, and its spreading to all nations.

Today, we are again discovering ourselves as as human society closed in from all sides, just as confused as we were in Babylon. The ego has developed to a point where we’ve come to the moden Tower of Babel: a globally interconnected network of global trade and economic relations based on narrow egoistic interests. As in the past, today we have built a tower separating us and we have nowhere to run. In today’s world, humanity finds itself trapped between global interdependence that connects us, on one hand, and competitive, egoistic interests that separate us, on the other.

At this juncture is exactly where we, the people of Israel, enter the picture.

Kabbalists have written extensively about our unique era. On one hand, it is a time when humanity realizes that the ego leads us to a dead end, and on the other hand, it is a time when the conditions for the absorption of Abraham’s system ripen. Moreover, humanity, which will need this method, will hold the people of Israel accountable as the ones holding back the method from humanity, as if they have a secret they’re not sharing with the rest of the world.

The time has now come.

Our mission, according to Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, is to be a conduit to transfer the system of the ego’s transcendance to humanity. However, in order for that to happen, we must first implement it on ourselves.

As long as we do not do so, suffering on personal, social, ecological and global scales will continue to increase. At the same time, humanity subconsciously feels that we, the Jews, have something special, and that we hold the key to a better life for every person on this planet. Such interdependence amounts to the fact that the more we delay in actualizing our role, the more we will be hated.

The sharp rise of anti-Semitism around the world is a fact that cannot be disputed. However, unlike previous waves of anti-Semitism, this time, the root of the phenomenon and its solution are more clearly visible. The fact that the nation founded by our Patriarch Abraham has forsaken its goal does not cancel our obligation to fulfill our role. Therefore, particularly in the global era, when we are all connected in a single network, once we return to a unified state, we will be able to submit to humanity as a whole the method of unity and love among human beings. “And when they do that, it is plain to see that with His work, all envy and hatred will be abolished from humanity” (Baal HaSulam, article “The Peace“).

Do Not Block The End Goal

Question: The end goal of the group is to achieve adhesion with the Creator. Can their enjoyment of getting together and talking about various subjects, get in the way of that?

Answer: All these things can be present but in no way should they obstruct the end goal, or it would be called a “gathering of fools.”

Even if they slightly shift the emphasis, the main goal should always be more important and in front of them compared to all the other tasks and topics they have to go through on the way to revealing the main goal.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 4/18/18

Does Trump Help The Jews?

Question: The decision of the Trump administration to endow Jews with the status of an ethnic group suggests that while Jews were previously considered a religious community, and the American state does not interfere in religious conflicts, now any actions directed against their ethnic country, that is, Israel, will be viewed as manifestations of racism and a violation of constitutional rights. Does that mean criminal liability?

Answer: This is all well and good. The big question is a familiar, eternal one: How will it be for the Jews?

I believe that nothing is going to change. Ultimately, the hatred will only increase.

Remark: But the Jews believe that this is such a big step!

My Comment: They always think so. These are people who do not understand the meaning of their existence, the goal of their existence, and absolutely do not learn from history in any way.

They are very smart and, indeed, many envy them: their development, aptitude for technology, science, and art—for everything other than their life’s purpose. Nothing teaches them: not the catastrophes that befall them, nor beatings, destruction, pogroms—nothing!

Also, nothing can teach them because they do not wish to see their purpose. If they would begin to ask: “What is the real reason for the hatred of all nations toward us?”—then they would find it, they would dig it out. It lies precisely in the ideal of Judaism, in the general unification of one and all.

The Jews must set an example for this unification. They should live to unite among each other with positive relations. Then, such positive connection between them will transfer to all other nations.

After all, the Jews are not a race or a nationality. This is the “mixed multitude” that Abraham gathered from all over Babylon and created a group from them based on one single attribute: they wanted to achieve the revelation of the Creator, the revelation of the concealed force of nature, to know the meaning of creation, its purpose through the unity between them. And he accomplished that.

Therefore, if the Jews unite, even in our time, since they are representatives from all the nations of the world dating back to those days, the world would immediately begin to calmly unite after them. The world would begin to realize: “Oh! So, this is who our destiny depends on!” For the better, too, not only for the worse. 8 billion people depend on 15 million.

Remark: It amazes me that we have made thousands of video clips on this topic, and each time you explain it in detail all the way to the end.

My Comment: It lives in me, I feel it as being the most relevant topic. Also, each time it becomes more and more relevant. I nevertheless hope that despite the thousands of times we have spoken about it, at a certain thousand-thousand-thousand-and-first time, it will finally “click.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 9/18/18

New Life #94 – Health And Nutrition

New Life #94 – Health and Nutrition
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

The quality of the connection between people also determines the quality of the food they eat. When we eat a schnitzel, we “drink” the attitude of the person who has prepared it for us. Anything that is truly served from the bottom of a person’s heart cannot harm the body. Even the damage caused by fast food can be neutralized by a positive attitude. If a person weren’t corrupt, the tomato wouldn’t rot either. The food crisis will bring the food business to an end and the demand for workers in agriculture and healthier food will prevail.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #94 – Health And Nutrition,” 10/30/12

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New Life #93 – Understanding Mental Health

New Life #93 – Understanding Mental Health
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

Mental illness stems from a malfunction of human nature. We are all inside a huge “computer,” the system of nature. It is a network that closes us in all together as one soul and manages our thoughts and feelings. A malfunction in my internal program means that I cannot connect properly to the general network. As a result, humanity is in a state of distorted perception today. We don’t want to adapt to the network of connections being revealed between us and we don’t see the future. The wisdom of Kabbalah can teach us how to heal our soul and bring the world to a wonderful, healthy state.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #93 – Understanding Mental Health,” 10/28/12

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