Looking For Love

On the next degree, an even greater lack is felt: the lack of love. The need for love is a treasure and I suffer from the fact that there is no love in my heart.¹

The need to love is a new Kli. In our world love withers because we receive what we desire and enjoy it. How can we enjoy love in such a way that it would constantly continue to grow? I must feel the need to love and enjoy not by using my loved one for pleasure, but in the yearning for it.

This yearning is my Kli and the only joy that I desire. I don’t want to reveal the Creator, but I am fulfilled by my yearning toward Him, by the greatness of the one that I fulfill. Such love never withers. If such love existed in our world, there would never be any divorce. We must work on such love.

We change our attitude toward unity. Our Kli becomes different, we gradually approach it from a new angle: instead of wishing to reach the goal, I enjoy my desire for it. I want to remain in this yearning and receive fulfillment from it like from my first love, from romantic thoughts, from the fact that I enjoy looking at the subject of my affection, from hearing their voice. The Creator gives everyone such an example in life, from it one can understand how this works in spirituality.

We can live in the pleasure of striving for the Creator. Then we will no longer be deceived as before when we wanted to reveal Him and enjoy this love. This is a lie, and this is how we kill it. Love can be enjoyed only if you go above your egoistic desires. Any relationship below this level destroys love.

Therefore, the spiritual and the corporeal are two different worlds. In corporeal life, we love the way we can, but in spirituality, love must be built on faith above reason.

Baal HaSulam, “Letter #19”: “This means that, during the preparation, the beauty and grace appear and the essence of perfection that one yearns and longs for. However, at the time of correction, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” then, “I shall see an opposite world,” because only fear and longing are the essence of the desired perfection. Then one feels that, during the time of preparation, one was lying to oneself.”

Indeed, in this manner, our spiritual vessel is not limited, we can feel eternity in it—the Creator. The need to love is pleasure: joy from yearning, desire, and longing. It is in this very yearning that love is achieved, not in receiving it and satiating oneself with it, which destroys it all. We see that such love ends and turns to ruins. The desire to love is not a void, but a fulfillment that never ends. Each time you can increase it, like love for a baby that never ends, it is there for life.

The goal of the Bulgarian congress is to learn how to love, to reveal a genuine desire toward the Creator, and to make the greatest leap toward the first spiritual degree. Genuine love is realized in the group, in unity for the sake of bestowal that the Creator can dress into. It means that the Creator dresses into His creations.

Everyone experiences their first love in their youth; it is given to us from above as an example of selfless platonic love. But we understand that it is impossible to achieve perfect love in our corporeal desires except under the condition that we rise above them. That is why we are given an example in our childhood of enjoying not the physical relationship, but the dreams of our beloved.

This is the attitude I should have toward the Creator: enjoying my yearning for Him so that it would completely fills me. I am content just thinking about the Creator, dreaming of bringing Him joy. This is a limitless Kli that can always be expanded further. This is not the romantic desire we felt in childhood but a desire to bestow, which is very deep and serious. It is more important than this entire world and all the desires to enjoy.

Inside, there are many different properties, wars are waged not for life, but for death, and all about this relationship: for the pleasure of striving toward the Creator. This means bringing joy to the Creator. What else can we give Him; what can we add to His perfection? Only our aspiration to Him.

It is said: “Beware of reaching out for love.” I do not want to receive what I want because this would destroy my love, weaken it, and it would immediately vanish. Therefore, I only need the aspiration.

This originates from the beginning of creation, from the four phases of direct light. The quality of stage four (Behina Dalet) is restriction and yearning. I do not want to receive anything, because I felt shame and understood that I am destroying the way the Creator is relating to me, and in this case, nothing can ever happen between us. It is good that I have developed a feeling of shame, a warning about my inability to love. Therefore, I restrict my desire.

How great it is that I found a solution: the restriction after which there is only the reflecting light, only the yearning toward the Creator. The restriction stays between us, I do not reveal Him, because this is called the disclosure of nakedness. We cannot do that. I always remain in love above reason, and the romantic love fulfills me completely.

I cover the source of my love with a screen so that I will relate to it above my animalistic desires, above the desire to enjoy.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/19, Preparation to the Europe Convention

How Should The Israel-Palestinian Conflict Be Solved? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How should the Israel-Palestinian conflict be solved?“

The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the people of Israel’s hands.

In order to understand how Israel holds the solution, we need to understand who are the people of Israel, what is their role in the world, and how the world responds to Israel in relation to the fulfillment or lack of fulfillment, of their role.

The nation of Israel was founded as a group who gathered from all parts of ancient Babylon under a common unifying concept: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Since this nation was based on an ideological foundation, not a biological one, then the world feels it as a strange phenomenon.

As the nation of Israel once attained unity above the growing divisions in ancient Babylon, so it is today: there is a subconscious expectation from the nations of the world toward Israel that they usher in the same positive force of love and connection that they once attained, and pioneer an example of a new society led by values of love, unity, mutual support and consideration. The more human society feels torn apart by division and hatred, the more it feels the people of Israel responsible for the world’s misfortunes.

Therefore, Palestine is only one of many characters frowning at Israel. Accordingly, Israel needs to respond to all of its enemies the only way it ultimately knows how to: by turning to its long-ignored power of unity.

First, the people of Israel need to understand that beneath all the surface reasons the world points out its hatred to us, whether it be oppression of Palestinians or too much power in countries we have assimilated into, there is fundamentally a much more significant and subconscious demand upon us.

It is a demand for our unity.

Neither Jews nor non-Jews know about it, because it is an ideological foundation that was lost around 3,800 years ago, and while we were all born and raised through a range of egoistic desires, we have no idea what it means to live in a unified state. Since we lack any feeling or experience of the kind of unity that our ancestors once attained, then we feel no lack for unity like we feel no lack for a sixth finger on our hand. We simply fail to see that if we unite, we will solve not only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but our unity will have a positive rippling effect throughout humanity, solving myriad other problems too.

The people of Israel have no ears for this message. Those who understand it, Kabbalists, are very small in number, and so there is no solution in sight on any mass scale.

The solution is solely that the nation of Israel listens to what the nations of the world want from them: to implement the unity that the nations of the world are crying out for behind all the surface anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism. We will then all live in peace.

World—Reality Or Illusion? Part 6

Rise Above Corporeal Senses

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,”: However, it is quite sufficient, for this is the rule: “All that is measured and extracted from His Providence so as to be realized into the nature of Creation, is completely satisfactory.” Similarly, one cannot wish for a sixth finger on one hand, because the five fingers are quite sufficient.

We are arranged so that it is enough for us to have five fingers on our hand. Would it bother us if we had a sixth finger? For example, a monkey has a special finger to grasp branches. It would be nice for us to have it too. Yet, I do not need it anymore! I do not feel any need for one more finger. It is the same everywhere, in all my senses I do not feel that I am missing something.

Telescopes and microscopes are only quantitative enlargements of sensory organs, their expansion. But if I use all my senses, I do not feel that I am lacking an additional sensory organ. I can say that I would like to hear ultra and infra sonic waves like dolphins. But all this comes from nature, this is just an expansion and not new sensory organs.

Thus, everything we have in us does not cause any feelings of lack, it is quite enough for us, and therefore we are not developing further. The only way to develop is to rise above our senses: not how much I will receive in my sensory organs, but how much I can work with them in the direction of bestowal.

Here I specifically start to feel not myself, but the world around me, I rise above myself. Here is a completely different science about the world—the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Question: What if five fingers are enough for me? I just live like that.

Answer: When I live in what is enough for me, it is the animate level. If I want to understand the source of everything that is happening, then nothing other than Kabbalah will help.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

To Unite Europe

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 11/13/19

Hundreds of People Just Met to Unite Europe

Europe is in the most dangerous position out of all continents. It currently resembles a modern version of ancient Babylon, which either can start uniting above its growing divisions, or shatter completely.

Yesterday, I returned from a very special European convention in Borovets, Bulgaria, which we held on behalf of Kabbalah Info

It was a gathering of representatives from all European nations, people who came to discuss, think about and work on creating a unified society capable of acting as a model for the kind of unity above division that Europe will increasingly feel a need for.

If we take a bird’s eye view of humanity’s development over 1,000s of years, the European convention was indeed very special. Since the time of ancient Babylon, more than 3,000 years ago, any unified sensation that humanity shared has been in ruins. This is precisely why seeing such efforts of hundreds of people gathering from all around Europe with the goal of uniting above our differences holds profound significance.

At the convention, we discussed how unity can become a reality in Europe, and how the unity of Europe by a critical mass of people who feel the importance of such unity, can become a model for a new era of unity in humanity.

Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), our principle study source, writes that today is the generation of the Messiah, “Messiah” (“Moshiach” in Hebrew) being a force that pulls (“Moshech” in Hebrew) us out of our involuntary egoistic, self-aimed desires, and into the altruistic desire to love, bestow and positively connect with others. In other words, by wanting to unite, we can draw the force dwelling in nature that constantly moves in a unifying direction, which unites us. We thus also achieve a certain extent of balance with nature, and experience positive feedback from such balance.

As today’s world sinks deeper into crisis, lacking solutions to the myriad problems boiling increasingly on personal, social, ecological and global scales, humanity somewhat manages to navigate itself by blurring the vast web of problems in the short term. However, in the long term, a growing sense of helplessness will corner us to face a fact that we do everything we can to avoid: that our lives will not improve by anything we try to change outside of ourselves. On the contrary, we will experience more peace, happiness, confidence and safety when we change ourselves.

Sooner or later, we will need to correct ourselves, changing our outlook on others, the world and nature from egoistic to altruistic, from divisive to unified, drawing nature’s positive influence upon us in the process. When we do, we will discover a newfound balance with nature, a sensation of harmony and perfection through our unity upon our differences.

Those who attended the European Convention in Bulgaria are those learning and implementing the wisdom of Kabbalah—a method for how to achieve unity above division. The time is coming closer to when humanity will feel a need for the kind of unity that this method guides us to, and I’m very happy to see so many people of different backgrounds, ages and genders applying themselves to achieve such exalted unity. As the future appears bleak for humanity if it fails to make a significant shift, there will be a growing demand for guidance on how to live more positive lives from a critical mass of people who have advanced in unity above division. What we went through at the European convention was a major step in that direction.

On A Small Raft

If I am constantly in the friends, I will not fall, I can balance my states. It is like we are standing on a raft buffeted by the waves, all ten of us. All of our work is in balancing the raft in the stormy sea; everyone makes efforts only for this.

There is a level in the middle of the raft showing the horizontal level and we all focus on it, on the middle line. We do this together or we cannot balance the level. We must feel one another, understand what each one is doing, and what we need for balance. We do not work in turns, one after another, we must be connected internally even before performing actions in order to align the level to zero.

By balancing the level, I perform an action opposite of the Creator: He raises the waves and I want to compensate for the disturbance, to make up for His work, and thus, I call Him. I work with the screen and the reflected light against the Creator, leading to a collision due to the oppositeness of our actions, and at the same time, to adhesion because we work together. It is as if we are dancing a tango, like a bride and groom.

This requires connection of the hearts. The mind will not help here; it works too slowly. Only the heart can react instantly. If one heart feels the other, they will immediately get along even before the comprehension reaches the mind and it begins to think.

Therefore, we want to be in one heart. When we feel that it is possible, we suddenly understand how in fact the spiritual world is arranged: “up to the reason.” The mind will begin to react in half a minute and not before; therefore, the main thing is the feeling, which responds immediately.

One heart means that there is no difference in our attitude; there is no delay from heart to heart; we are simply all together. Therefore, we do not need to wait for each other or ask one another what the other is doing to balance the level. We balance it together; we ask nothing because we know, we feel, what will be. We rise above time because I do not need to wait for the actions of the friends; I live with them in a single heart. Therefore, time disappears since there is no past, present, and future.

Past, present, and future exist between us only because of the transfer from one to another. If we all act from one point, then there is no time. It turns out we already are in eternity because time has disappeared.

However, if we do not work from the center of the group, all our work will be in a very long, roundabout way. Eventually, we will reach the goal someday, but we will stretch the time very much.

The level is the central point of the group, a single desire, single intention, single heart. In this place we can reveal the Creator: one against the other.

The level is not an air bubble in a liquid, like in a physical device, but the common heart of the group that belongs to everyone. Imagine that we are on a raft swaying on the waves. In the middle of the raft there is a level that we need to keep in balance. If we are able to align it, then in the central point that maintains balance despite the waves, our contact with the Creator occurs, His revelation.

On the next degree, it will become even more difficult to maintain balance: the waves will swell higher, the raft will become taller, two floors. However, this will make us unite even more tightly in one heart, and only in this way will we discover more and more opportunities to reveal the Creator and bring Him contentment.

The level is the common point for all of us, which came from the Creator. It is the Creator within us! The level will be in balance if we are all directed toward each other, each one wanting nothing for himself and being ready to give all of himself to the friends.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/19, Simchat Torah

World—Reality Or Illusion? Part 5

Expanding the Limits of Perception

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: Now you can easily conclude that all the names and appellations that appear in books of Kabbalah are indeed real and factual, although we have no attainment in the subject matter whatsoever. It is so because those who engage in it have the complete satisfaction with their inclusive perception of its ultimate wholeness, meaning a mere perception of actions, prompted and born of the association of the Upper Light and its perceivers.

The fact is that there is a limit to our perception. The wisdom of Kabbalah says that you constantly attain deep, wide, enter all vector spaces, and fully reveal them. However, you nevertheless attain only the reality that fills you. And the reality that does not fill you, you do not attain and do not even know whether it exists or not.

Here the question arises: How do Kabbalists know that there is some other reality? Did they attain it themselves? If so, then why don’t they speak about it as yet another additional level of attainment of reality?

It turns out that they place riddles before us or they want to intrigue us somehow, as if they say: “There is something here but I am not telling you.” However, this is not their approach.

We have to reach the quality of bestowal, the quality of the Creator. The Creator positions Himself in relation to us as bestowing, loving, and uniting, rising above us despite our egoism. We, by rising above our egoism, can explore Him, feel Him, and become similar to Him.

How can we make it so that we do not just feel the Creator because of our equivalence to Him, but feel Him not from our own Kelim (Vessels) and qualities? This is a problem.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

Why Do Kabbalists Demand Students Work?

Question: Why do Kabbalists require students to work?

Answer: A person has to work because he must be busy. He can’t study Kabbalah all day or sit on a bench all day, nibble sunflower seeds, and talk about politics. He does not need that at all.

He should study preferably three hours in the morning before work and two hours in the evening after work. If he has free time, then more. The rest of the time: work, sleep, and eat. What else does he need in life? It should be very simple and natural.

Regarding sleep, he needs to rest for 5 to 7 hours. There are people who require seven hours of sleep, there are people for whom five is enough.

Remark: There is also sports, music, and theater.

My Comment: If a person studies Kabbalah, then it unites into one music, theater, and sport.

Question: Does this mean that there aren’t other needs?

Answer: No.

Question: So, ideally, the sensation of the Creator should fill all these niches?

Answer: Everything comes from Him, only it comes to us in different guises.

Remark: In principle, people lived once normally and without sports…

My Comment: But exercise, perhaps, is needed. Music, literature, and everything else is also needed, but it has to be within the boundaries of the correction of the human soul.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/3/19

New Life #293 – An Integral Group, Part 2

New Life #293 – An Integral Group, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Every part of nature includes all of nature within it so it is possible to understand everything in an integral connection. A group is a dynamic system of communication between at least two people. First, group members learn general rules regarding how to connect in a new manner and why this is important. Then, they work through four stages including how to become like an embryo in the group, how to be like a mother’s womb for the others in the group, how to see all group members as equals, and, finally, how to create a sense of “we” and “one” in the center of the group. This type of group, with a quality connection between the members, can solve any problem and manage all aspects of life intelligently and sensitively.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #293 – An Integral Group, Part 2,” 1/21/14

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Win A Bit More For Holiness

Contraction and expansion are the consequences of the shattering of the common soul of Adam. We cannot just expand at will and emerge from our boundaries. We are always within our desire created by the Creator, but we can use it either in its corrupted or corrected form.

Therefore, expansion and contraction indicate to what extent we can take our corrupted desires and turn them into corrected ones. This is our work. Contraction and expansion happen only in relation to an intention for my own sake or for the sake of bestowal, but inside the same desire.

Each time we win back a little more additional territory from egoism and invert it to holiness, that is, to bestowal. We need to reach the front line where the border between the Klipa and the holiness lies, and try with the help of the Creator, that is, the prayer, our connection, and appeal to the Creator, to push back the forces of impurity and pass this part to the authority of holiness. We need to continue in this way, constantly standing guard over bestowal and further freeing the field blessed by the Creator.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/19, The Benefit of Moving into a World Ten – Contraction and Expansion” (Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

World—Reality Or Illusion? Part 4

Reach a new Level of Attainment

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: … render us complete satisfaction although we have no perception whatsoever in the essence of the subject.

Furthermore, you have no perception or attainment whatsoever even in your own essence. Everything you know about your own essence is nothing more than a series of actions extending from your essence.

It turns out that what I have is enough for me. If I feel some kind of phenomenon and it completely fulfills my desires and satisfies my questions, then I do not yearn for anything more.

Is it still possible to be infected by further questions? Perhaps somewhere somehow it is possible if we get closer to the Creator and want to acquire His nature. Maybe there we will be able to reach such possibilities of attainment that are higher than our current ones. However, this is a completely different level of the universe, a different level of attainment.

Everyone exists on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, including all the people in our world. If a person who studies Kabbalah rises above the animate level, ascends to the level of the Creator and begins to attain this system, he or she feels not only it, but also the causes of all the phenomena.

That is, I do not just feel the Creator, but I reveal His essence, the next level of reality. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah studies. But that is already a top chord.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

The Sign Of Spiritual Connection

Question: When we watch some programs, we become involved with them and feel the stream of thoughts and feelings. This is already a level of connection.

Why, if I feel the thoughts and desires of others within me, is this a sign of spiritual connection?

Answer: A sign of spiritual connection can only be when I feel rejection from my friends and at the same time I pray for connection between us. Only these two opposing tendencies in me indicate spiritual elevation.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 8/18/19

New Life #292 – An Integral Group, Part 1

New Life #292 – An Integral Group, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

An integral group develops a new vision of the world as round, including everything that appears to be outside within one’s personal life. It means everyone relates to each other as a single family. It is not a commune or socialism. Everything is connected on every level in every area within reality; humanity needs to develop an integral sense through new internal programing so they can perceive this truth. The integral environment influences a person to consider what is good for everyone through exercises, workshops, and activities. Each person shifts their focus from “I” to We” to “One.” Together, we learn how to make the right decisions in life and never make mistakes.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #292 – An Integral Group, Part 1,” 1/21/14

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The Rise Of Anti-Semitism In Germany And The World And Its Solution (Times Of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “The Rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany and the World, and Its Solution”

“We have a Nazi problem in Dresden and have to do something about it,” said a city council member who succeeded with local lawmakers in passing an initiative to declare a “Nazi emergency.” This story is not a throwback to the 1930s in Germany, but a recent occurrence. It is a symptom of the larger problem of white supremacy spreading in major European and American cities, which raises the question: Why are Jews treated by many as a stone in humanity’s shoe? Solving this enigma is a pivotal step to finding a way to remove the uncomfortable annoyance.

But why Dresden in particular? Dresden happens to be a bastion of the far-right political party, “Alternative for Germany,” (AfD) and the birthplace of the movement PEGIDA (“Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident,” in German), which are described as anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and xenophobic.

However, anti-Semitism is certainly not limited to radical right-wing groups. It is prevalent in German society as a whole. More than 25% of Germans agree with classic anti-Jewish tropes, including that Jews have “too much power over the economy,” according to a study revealed last month by the World Jewish Congress. Over 40% said they think Jews “talk about the Holocaust too much,” yet one in four respondents also said it is possible that “something like the Holocaust could happen in Germany again.”

Hatred Against Jews in America

The first anniversary of Pittsburgh’s synagogue attack was commemorated last month. It is a vivid reminder of how hatred against Jews is much more than a matter of hate speech these days. Jew-hatred can materialize in a split second as deadly violent attacks. A man accused of plotting to blow up a Jewish temple was arrested just days ago by the FBI in Colorado. We see close parallels between events in America and Germany with the Yom Kippur attack at the Halle synagogue at the hands of a Neo-Nazi.

“This hatred is real, comes from multiple sources, and is growing,” said the American Jewish Committee’s CEO, David Harris, in response to a recent survey conducted by the Jewish organization which revealed that nearly 9 of 10 American Jews now consider anti-Semitism a problem in the US.

In order to combat the sharp rise in Jew-hatred in both America and worldwide, the Jewish Agency recently announced a far-reaching plan to bolster security systems in 50 Jewish institutions, such as Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers in 24 countries this year in response to global requests for safety support. The goal is to extend this security upgrade to include 40 countries by the end of 2020.

No Jewish Safety Until the Cause of Hatred Against Us Is Solved

Today, we discover our human society to be closed-in on all sides, trapped between global interdependence that connects us, on one hand, and competitive, egoistic interests and indifference that separates us, on the other. This is the exact juncture where anti-Semitism is rooted and where the people of Israel enter the picture.

We were established as a Jewish nation at the foot of Mount Sinai when all our members committed to unite “as one man with one heart.” Immediately thereafter, we were commanded to be “a light unto the nations,” namely to spread the light of unity throughout the world. Since we once experienced brotherly love in the bonds between us, we have the ability to once again unite above our differences and set an example for others who so desperately need such guidance. This is what makes the Jewish people unique, and this example is precisely what the world demands of us during our current times of division and rifts.

Humanity subconsciously feels that we Jews hold the key to a better life for every person on this planet. Such interdependence between the role of Jews and the fate of humanity amounts to the fact that the more we delay in actualizing our role, the more we will be hated.

The Jewish people are essentially a mini-model of humanity, a prototype for universal connection between people. The degree of connection we establish between us is destined to spread and shape the conditions for the rest of the world. When we return to brotherly love between all Jews, the demand against us that manifests as anti-Semitism will vanish.

Rav Kook summed up this essential role of Jews as follows: “The purpose of Israel is to unite the world into a single family.”

Our Life Insurance Is in Our Unity

When our enemies strike they do not ask what denomination of Judaism we belong to, or what our origin is, or whether we are right-wing or left-wing. They simply strike out against us, convinced that the world’s problems will be solved by erasing Jews off the face of the planet. This overriding force of anti-Semitism constantly resurfaces in various guises to compel us to unite during times when we become increasingly remote from being a united people.

Today, instead of exemplifying unity, we radiate divisiveness to the rest of the world. In such a state, the world will always find reasons to hate us and feel justified in trying to destroy us. The precise point upon which our prosperity depends was succinctly expressed by Samuel David Luzzatto: “The success of our nation depends only on our brotherly love, on connecting to one another as members of a single family.”

First and foremost, Jews must be a conduit to transmit an example of cohesion, mutual understanding and solidarity above differences to humanity. By providing a method for uniting above differences and divisions, we will become an enlightening force for the rest of the world. As stated in The Book of Zohar: “Just as the organs of the body cannot exist for one moment without the heart, so all nations cannot exist in the world without Israel.”

Our thoughts and efforts that draw us to unite and in turn soften critical attitudes about each other have the power to evoke a positive force between us, one capable of gradually neutralizing hatred and bringing about balance. This is the power that can protect and lead us toward a good and safe future.

World—Reality Or Illusion? Part 3

A Person Is a Reaction to the Influence of Nature

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: This name is as tangible and as close to us as though it were entirely perceived by our senses. Even little children are familiar with the word, “electricity,” as well as they are familiar with words such as bread, sugar, and so on.

Moreover, if you wish to exercise your tools of scrutiny a bit, I shall tell you that as a whole, as there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, so is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands.

It seems that everything is clear to us, but in fact, nothing is clear. We can somehow work with electricity because everything around us is the manifestation of this force. But what is this force? We do not know.

Moreover, if you wish to exercise your tools of scrutiny a bit, I shall tell you that as a whole, as there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, so is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands.

Thus, all we know about our friends and relatives in the world of action before us are nothing more than “acquaintance with actions.” These are prompted and born by the association of their encounter with our senses, which render us complete satisfaction although we have no perception whatsoever of the essence of the subject.

The fact is that we attain not the essence of any natural phenomena, such as electricity, gravity, magnetism, and so on, but rather only their effect in us. Something gravitates me – “Oh, it means there is a force of gravity and I can measure it.” Yet, I do not know what this force really is.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that in such a form we can also attain the Creator. We attain Him from His actions. It is written, “From Your deeds we shall know You.”

This is a very serious limitation for us. Will we ever attain the essence of the phenomena? Never! Even if we aspire to it.

In fact, we, in general, do not even aspire to it. We have some kind of movements, impulses, but we do not suffer from the fact that we do not have this, and therefore, we have nothing in which to reveal the essence of natural phenomena. We see only their effect because we ourselves are the effect.

Yet, is it possible to rise above this to absolute attainment? There, far-far beyond the full attainment of the Creator, we will begin to contact the point from which everything comes. Perhaps, there is an opportunity to get out of our sensations of effects and get to the essence, to the truth.

Somewhere deep inside we want this, although where can we get such a feeling, such a lack? Is the feeling of the truth, the root, the basis, the source, of everything that is happening so necessary to us?

There are a lot of nuances here, and I would like to tease you a little, to cause you such excitement that you will want to reveal this.

In other words, all corporeal phenomena we attain are only through the reaction of our sensory organs to their influence. That is, we are the effect, the reaction to some kind of influence.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

Connection Is The Source Of Correct Decisions

Question: Let’s say a group of people wants to find the right solution for problems they have. They already have basic knowledge of Kabbalah and they understand that the workshop is a preparation for solving the problem. There are certain rules in this work. Where did they come from?

Answer: We live in a world in which practically no problem can be solved. If it seems to us that today we seemingly found a solution, already tomorrow we understand that it is not a solution. We are constantly deflecting the solution, thinking that we are coming to its revelation.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that until we connect, reach some common denominator, we will be unable to find this solution. It is within us.

All the problems that occur in a bigger or smaller part of humanity come only from the fact that this part of humanity is disconnected. Otherwise, there would be no problems. After all, they all come from our shattering, disconnection, and mutual distance from each other.

If we gather together in order to solve them, we must first connect into a common collective.

Question: Does it mean that Kabbalists do not solve any problems at all?

Answer: No, what for? What problems do we have besides the fact that we are not connected? If we connect, all problems disappear.

Question: So, does Kabbalah solve only one problem: how to connect?

Answer: There are no other problems in the world.

Question: Will other problems disappear as a result of it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What about problems like health, family, etc.?

Answer: The fact is that problems occur on different levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. In order to come to the solution of any problem, we should gather together, connect, and in the connection between us, find the solution. We can then implement it to eliminate corporeal problems.

To find the solution itself, however, is only possible when people are mutually connected, understand, and complement each other. Only then does the solution become clear.

Accordingly, the solution will always be correct and beneficial for implementing any plans on the levels that are lower than their human level.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/25/18

New Life #291 – Empathy

New Life #291 – Empathy
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Today, a person doesn’t have any pangs of conscience regarding lack of empathy for others. The younger generation does not have a need for emotional connection with others because everything is available for free on the Internet. Empathy develops in situations involving mutual dependence and the influence of the right type of environment. We can develop empathy through education aimed at building mutual complementarity and integral perception. We can engage in communication and connection exercises and games in which each one refers to others as wise and understanding. We can learn to listen to another, dive into his story, and flow with him as if I were reading an enrapturing book. We can learn how to develop empathy toward others, the ability to feel others. This helps in every area of life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #291 – Empathy,” 1/19/14

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Cancel Self-Love

Rabash, Article No 6, 1984, “Love of Friends (2)” Everyone should think that he has come to the group to cancel his self love, that is, he should not think about how he can fulfill his desire, but as much as possible think only about love for his friends—because only through it he can acquire the desire and need for the new property—the desire to give.

And from love of friends, one can come to love of the Creator, to desire to give contentment to the Creator.

We must not forget that precisely this is what we should think about all the time and aim all our aspirations toward. No matter how much it is opposite to our nature, we still have to position ourselves this way.

I am aimed at rising above my self love for the love of friends because through such an attitude toward them I begin to perceive the Creator, the upper world, the property of bestowal, I rise above my nature. It is the exact condition, that lever, which can lift me.

At first, these are, in general, selfish desires: I want to rise, I want to find, I want. If I need to love another for this, then I am ready. Good. There is nothing to be done if it is necessary.

Then, when we work with this, I suddenly begin to feel that I do not need anything else. I do not even need myself. If there is such a property as bestowal, if there is such a state called the Creator, that is all, that is enough for me, I do not even need to exist.

A person feels the influence of the upper light so much that he does not even ask for himself; on the contrary, he is ready to completely annul himself, to not exist. This is how the next stage of our development begins.

To the extent of the similarity to the Creator—to give Him pleasure just as the Creator wants to give us pleasure—we gain the Creator’s quality, merge with Him, and rise to His level.

There are two stages here. We can acquire a new property, a desire to give, only by working with friends. And only then do we we gain the desire to give pleasure to the Creator, and thus rise to similarity with Him.
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From the Convention In Moldova “Day One” 9/6/19, “Dissolving in the Friends,” Lesson 1

World—Reality Or Illusion? Part 2

Do we perceive the essence of natural phenomena?

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”:

The Actuality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Actual things are found even in the corporeal reality, set before our eyes, though we have neither perception nor image of their essence. Such are the electricity and the magnet, called “fluidum.”

Nevertheless, who can say that these names are not real, when we vividly and satisfactorily know their actions? We could not be more indifferent to the fact that we cannot conceive the essence of the subject itself, namely electricity itself.

Indeed, we do not understand what electricity is or the essence of any other physical phenomenon. We observe only their effects.

For example, we know how to work with electricity, with electromagnetism, we use them freely in our lives in everyday household activities. But we do not really know what it is. Yet, this does not bother us at all. We continue to exploit these natural phenomena completely unaware of their essence. And we understand that we do not know this.

Do we know what gravity is, even though everyone feels its impact on themselves? Try to jump, you will see what it is. We measure this force, learn how to overcome it. But what is this force? What is its essence? Where does it come from? We do not know. This is how it is with all natural phenomena.

Baal HaSulam writes that our knowledge about their manifestation satisfies us completely. We do not need anything else in order to use them.

The main thing for us is to use these phenomena. We do not attain their inner essence because nature created us this way. We attain only their effects in our sensations and nothing more.

Of course, we could decide that it would be good to find out where magnetism, electricity, gravity, and all other natural phenomena come from. But they are completely concealed from us. We are just the instruments in which these phenomena manifest, and their manifestations are what we feel.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19