“The Reset Button”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/9/20

In contrast to the egoistic human perspective, nature aims to connect all its elements into a single harmonious whole. Within this harmonious whole, each part receives what it needs for its sustenance and gives according to its ability for the benefit of the whole—similar to the healthy functioning of the cells and organs in the human body.

While the egoistic quality of mankind increasingly clashes with nature’s altruistic quality, we will experience more and more blows. Blows from nature can appear as global pandemics, as we are now experiencing with the coronavirus, as well as in myriad other forms such as ecological disasters, for example.
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“Simchat Torah”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/9/20

When we gather with people who also wish to overcome their egoistic inclination and exert a positive influence in the world, we get ready to receive the Torah. By doing so, we set the foundation for a society that is capable of switching the current chaotic direction the world is treading to a positive and balanced one.

We can rejoice then in our recognition of the real cause of all our problems—our egoistic nature—and in our having the means at our disposal to redirect this nature to a good direction of connection, love, and giving. That is already a major step toward the reformation the Torah speaks about.

Happy holiday to all!
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“What Is The Joy In Simchat Torah?”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/9/20

Friday is the day of Simchat Torah [lit. The Joy of Torah]. On this day, we celebrate the completion of the cycle of reading Torah portions and the beginning of a new one. But why is completing a cycle of reading only to start over a reason for celebration? It isn’t. If we look only at the superficial level of things, there is nothing to celebrate.

If we want to make sense of this festive day, we have to go beyond the exterior, to the inner, true meaning of the Torah. It is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice” (Masechet Kidushin). This means that the Torah is not some piece of text that we must recite without applying its content to ourselves, but a means for correcting our evil inclination. If we use it for any other purpose, we are missing the whole point.

If we achieve correction of our evil inclination, then we have a reason for celebration. If we do not, then we should keep working until we reach the state of Simchat Torah, namely the correction of our evil inclination through the “spice” of Torah.

In Hebrew, the word Torah means both “light” and “instruction.” The “light” in it is regarded as “the light that reforms,” a force that “corrects” our evil inclination into a good inclination. The “instruction” part of the Torah refers to what we have to do in order to “reform” ourselves, and that is to love our neighbors as ourselves. Old Hillel said about this, “That which you hate, do not do unto your neighbor; this is the whole of the Torah” (Masechet Shabbat, 31a), and Rabbi Akiva added, “Love your neighbor as yourself; this is the great rule of the Torah” (Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim, 30b).

At the moment, the festival of Simchat Torah is simply a reminder of what we should be doing, and in that sense I’m happy about it. But in truth, we have no cause for celebration since there is anything but love of others among us. Even if we weren’t corrected but at least wanted to use the “light” in order to reform ourselves, it would be reason enough for celebration. But currently, I do not see that we are acknowledging our desperate need to change or that we are willing to and feel accountable for the state of our nation.

The situation is even more serious when it comes to our relations with the nations of the world. As Jews, we are constantly under the world’s watchful eye. They judge us by a different yardstick than they judge any other nation, and with good reason: They feel that it’s our duty to bring them light, to be “a light unto nations.” That is, we are not only required to use the reforming light on ourselves, but we are also required to pass it on so the rest of the world can be rid of the evil inclination. Even if the nations don’t articulate this request explicitly, their accusation that we are causing all that is evil in the world is in fact the flip side of saying “You are not bringing the light you are supposed to, the light that will reform us and stop the evil among us.”

Even our own sages tell us that our task is to bring the light of unity to the world, and when we do not, we inflict trouble on the nations. The Talmud writes, “No calamity comes to the world but because of Israel” (Masechet Yevamot, 63a). The Midrash is even more specific: “This nation, world peace dwells within it” (Beresheet Rabbah, 66).

We see that when antisemites accuse us of causing wars, they are in fact saying the same thing that our sages have been saying for generations but we refuse to listen. Because we wouldn’t listen, we have been given antisemites to intimidate us and force us to listen. Perhaps if we tried to do what our sages, who certainly want our best, have been advising us for millennia, we wouldn’t be suffering from antisemitism to this day, eighty years after the horrors of the Holocaust.

The Book of Consciousness writes, “We are commanded at each generation to strengthen the unity among us so our enemies do not rule over us.” With these words, I would like to wish us all that this coming year, we will unite “as one man with one heart,” learn the true meaning of the Torah, rejoice in it, and merit the words of King David in Psalms 29, “The Lord will give strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace.”

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“Simchat Torah, Reasons To Be Joyful” (Times Of Israel)

 

The Times of Israel published my new article “Simchat Torah, Reasons to Be Joyful”

Simchat Torah marks the conclusion of the Tishrei holiday cycle with a celebration of joy in the Torah. But is it possible to feel a happy atmosphere when the world is facing such a conspicuous pandemic? Indeed, the current situation gives us an opportunity to recognize the cause of our predicaments—our egoistic inclination of self-concern—and to transform them into the right direction of love and connection. What is the real meaning of rejoicing with the Torah? Where is this joy rooted? To understand the deeper meaning behind this celebration we should first understand what the deeper meaning behind the Torah itself is.

The Torah is the “light that reforms” [Midrash Rabah, Eicha, “Introduction,” Paragraph 2]. It refers to the force that develops and sustains all living organisms. The light is a desire to give, and its creation, particularly us, is a desire to receive. The joy we feel during Simchat Torah symbolizes our discovery of this light, i.e., the attainment of its characteristic quality of giving onto our innate desire to receive. Such attainment is feeling a much more expansive reality than the one we feel when we only receive.

Although we are a desire to receive, completely opposite to the light’s giving quality, we don’t feel the full intensity of this oppositeness, its “evil” (“the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” [Genesis, 8:21]). What we do feel is that the more we develop, the more problems and pains emerge. The purpose of the unfolding crises in every field of life we’re experiencing today is to make us seek out why they are happening and how they can be resolved.

Moreover, today’s globally interdependent condition, particularly evident due to the pandemic, shows us that the more we develop without working together to resolve the many personal, social, ecological, and financial issues pressing on us and looking at them as a common state that demands mutual responsibility, then we’re bound to tumble into deeper chasms.

The global crisis today is occurring in order to bring us to the discovery of our nature—the desire to receive pleasure for self-benefit alone—as the cause of our problems. We need to learn how to redirect our desires in order to fix these problems at their core. As it is written, “I have created the evil inclination,” and “I have created for it the Torah as a spice” [Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b] because “the light in it reforms them” [Midrash Rabah, Eicha, “Introduction,” Paragraph 2.].

In other words, our egoistic desires were created with a means of redirecting them into a form of giving, the Torah, and by doing so correcting them, thereby adding fulfillment and pleasure to our lives, a spice. The question then is: How? How can we work with this light? How can we invite it into our lives, let it work on us, and allow it to bring about positive changes? The answer lies in our connection.

When we gather with people who also wish to overcome their egoistic inclination and exert a positive influence in the world, we get ready to receive the Torah. By doing so, we set the foundation for a society that is capable of switching the current chaotic direction the world is treading to a positive and balanced one.

We can rejoice then in our recognition of the real cause of all our problems—our egoistic nature—and in our having the means at our disposal to redirect this nature to a good direction of connection, love, and giving. That is already a major step toward the reformation the Torah speaks about.

Happy holiday to all!

“US Jews Should Be Wise When Voting For Next President” (Israel Hayom)

 My new article on Israel Hayom “US Jews should be wise when voting for next president”

Israelis always want the president of the United States to be pro-Israel, and with good reason. For decades, the US has supported Israel in many ways – financially, in the international arena, and in military aid. This support did not come without its price tag, and the US has always had at least a certain amount of control over Israel’s foreign policy, but there is no question that America’s support of Israel has done us a lot of good.

In less than a month, America will vote on who will be its president for the next four years. I think this is a good time for us to reflect on what makes us worthy of support. What are we giving to the world? Why did we establish the State of Israel to begin with? Is it only in order to serve as a safe haven after the Holocaust? If this were so, then I’m sure the nations already regret their vote from November 29, 1947 when they supported the establishment of a Jewish state.

I think that to merit support from the American president, and from every other country for that matter, the people of Israel must live up to their name. We may want to be like all other nations, but we are not. We didn’t come from a single clan or tribe; we have no biological or familial affiliation.

On the contrary, our forefathers came from clans and tribes from all over the Fertile Crescent, which were often hostile toward each other. These refugees from their own nations became a separate nation since they had the same ideology, the same spiritual idea that unity and love of others must transcend all other values. This is why we began our official nationhood only after we agreed to unite “as one man with one heart.”

We struggled with our commitment to unite all through our years in the desert and we achieved sovereignty only after we achieved unity. When our unity disintegrated, we were exiled to Babylon. When we reunited under Haman’s threat of destruction, we were given Israel once more. But then we started hating each other to the point that we slaughtered and starved one another while the Roman legion sieged the walls of Jerusalem, and that made us unworthy of having a land of our own and we were exiled until now.

After World War II, we were given another chance at sovereignty. But if we don’t rise to the challenge, the nations won’t support us. Unless we find a way to be once more “as one man with one heart,” and set an example of unity to the world, the nations will see no purpose in our being here.

If another vote on the establishment of the State of Israel were done today, does anyone believe that we would receive the required two-thirds favorable votes? Regardless of our foreign policy, the nations will condemn us as long as we are an example of belligerence and internal division. The world looks at Israel with dismay and often with disgust not because of our military conduct, but because of our conduct with each other. If we behave the way Israel should behave, making unity our top value, then whoever is elected on November 3 will be a favorable president toward Israel, as will all other nations.

It is said that Jews are smart. I hope that we are smart enough to learn from our past errors so we don’t have to experience another cataclysm in the grief-stricken chronicles of our nation.

“What Scares You Most In Life?” (Quora)

 

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What scares you most in life?“

Think about what it would be like to be completely connected to other people, like cogwheels, spinning with everyone in total coordination.

Imagine that your thoughts, desires, actions and decisions depend entirely on your surrounding society and circumstances.

It would be intolerable feeling, worse than prison—total enslavement.

You would feel like a caged animal, frantically seeking every possible way to break free.

You would prefer to die than feel that kind of inescapable pressure.

Yet, whether we like it or not, humanity is heading in that direction.

Today, the coronavirus has already illuminated how we have entered a whole new era of global interdependence and interconnectedness, and we can only expect our connections to become tighter.

What, then, is the key to feel our increasing connection not as a prison cell that closes in on us more and more, but as an amazing new phenomenon that opens up all kinds of new opportunities?

That key is a new kind of education.

Until today, our education has mostly raised us to enter the job market, which has already started shaking under the pressure of today’s increasingly interdependent and interconnected reality. Moreover, as we mainly learn how to fill jobs and make careers for ourselves, and fail to learn about how we can manage our relationships successfully in a reality where we become more closely intertwined, then we experience myriad negative outcomes—from increasing depression, stress, anxiety and loneliness on personal scales, through to more social division and polarization in society at large.

At the base of it, the more we develop, the more we connect. However, our connections are superficial: we connect more technologically, economically and through all kinds of phenomena like the coronavirus that place us all into common circumstances around the world. The paradox is that the more we connect in such a way, the more detached we become in our attitudes to each other.

Therefore, today we need a new kind of education that guides our inner psychological adaptation to our increasing external connections, i.e., that we learn how to adapt our attitudes to each other in order to realize our increasing connections positively.

The problem is that our egoistic nature—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—conflicts with our increasing connection, which demands us to be considerate, conceding, giving and responsible for one another.

What scares me, then, is the thought about how humanity will further connect: Will humanity become flattened under the evolutionary steamroller than connects people more and more with no conscious participation, and thus experience further development as pains and suffering; or will humanity start becoming organized to learn about its nature and the nature of the surrounding integral reality, and start making moves to match its currently divisive and egoistic attitudes with the perfect altruistic connectedness of the surrounding reality?

However, the fear I have is coupled with hope and an unending drive to pass on the method of connection that Kabbalists devised thousands of years ago precisely to be used in our era. I teach the method to my students in daily lessons, just as my teacher did for his students, and also participate in many different TV and Internet programs during the day, viewed by millions around the world in multiple languages—people who have no direct interest in Kabbalah itself, but who can use the principles of the method in order to better understand how nature works, and how it leads us to a need for connection. Even just this basic understanding of the method of connection trickling through serves to point the way to positive connection. However, as we can see, it is insufficient to spare humanity from crisis and suffering.

If we truly wanted to spare ourselves from unnecessary suffering as we further develop, we would need to integrate the method of connection into our educational systems and media influences, so that to the same extent in which we learn about how to fill job positions and encounter all kinds of media that influences us with mostly divisive messaging, we would learn about how to positively connect and become happy, confident and safe human beings, as well as engaging with media that influences us with positive examples, such as people overcoming their base egoistic drives by showing love and care for each other.

For anyone interested in further pursuing this topic, the above video is a documentary that one of my students created on this transitional moment in history, and today’s fateful need to positively connect.

Advice For Making Decisions

 

Comment: Give advice for an ordinary person about how to make the right decision at every moment of his life so he will feel good.

My Response: Make sure people approve of it.

Question: And how should a manager make decisions, for them to be good for him and his subordinates?

Answer: Discuss it with subordinates.

Question: What advice would you give the president to make the right decisions?

Answer: He should look for smart people.

Question: What advice would you give parents about how to make the right decision in the family?

Answer: Understand the child and give him activities that captivate him and make him a great person.

Question: And now, give advice for people who are looking for the meaning of life. What is the meaning? Where can someone find it?

Answer: Come to our organization. I can’t see where else the meaning of life is.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/11/20

Choose The Path

 

Question: Is it necessary to teach a person to make decisions or is it a natural skill, a consequence of a person’s upbringing, education? I ask because there are so many courses on how to make right decisions.

Answer: Yes, but they are all limited by the framework of corporeal life. Therefore, I cannot speak with them at the same level. They are trained to make decisions within the corporeal framework.

Remark: But we also live within the corporeal framework.

Answer: The fact is that now this is no longer the case. Today we live in a generation that must choose a path that coincides with the general task of the universe even in solving the most elementary production problems. Otherwise, nothing will come of this enterprise.

Let people come to our course and gradually begin to understand how the whole system called one soul, Adam, works, and how we can behave correctly in this system.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/11/20

Not To Manage But To Achieve

 

Question: They say that three things are required in order to manage: time, talent, and desire. And in your opinion, someone who doesn’t like to manage can be a manager. Why?

Answer: Because in this case, he will not confuse people and intentionally manipulate them. Management is good when you clearly know the goal, constantly develop more specific concise ways to achieve it, and know which people to engage in order to realize this goal.

Question: Are you saying that a good manager is someone who doesn’t like to manage but just does it out of necessity?

Answer: Yes. Otherwise he will get bogged down in this work and will find pleasure in digging in it.

Question: Does it mean that for him some goal must be higher than the desire of a person to control and rule?

Answer: Of course. If I can jump to the end of this process, that is the most important thing for me. I do not like to manage, I like to achieve.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/11/20

At The End Of Spiritual Correction

 

Question: Why are there so many people in the world if they don’t yearn for spirituality according to the upper law?

Answer: Because every person must perform at least his tiny portion of work out of the general amount of work.

We have already entered the final stage of development. We are in fact at the end of correction that has been going on for almost 6,000 years, having started with Adam.

Adam was the first Kabbalist who began the correction. Today we are approaching its end, and maybe we can even complete the correction. Everything depends only on us. The world is ready.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 10/7/18

“A Task Force To Combat Online Antisemitism? Get Real” (Times Of Israel)

 

The Times of Israel published my new article “A Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism? Get Real”

Creating “a global inter-parliamentary task force to combat digital antisemitism” a few weeks before a presidential election isn’t credible, and that’s putting it mildly. And besides, what can any task force do against hatred that comes from the kernel of human nature? It would be more successful fighting against gravity than against antisemitism.

On September 29, Jewish Insider published a story titled “Members of Congress launch international task force to combat online antisemitism.” According to the story, the task force is to focus on “raising awareness about online antisemitism and establishing a consistent message in legislatures across the world to hold social media platforms accountable.” It is a hopeless task, and right before the elections, it is nothing more than lip-service.

You can’t eliminate antisemitism just as you cannot eliminate pain until you heal the sore that causes it. In the case of antisemitism, the sore is the fact that Jews aren’t uniting among themselves and leading the world after them to unity and solidarity.

That sore was not born in America, nor in Nazi Germany, or even in Christian Europe. It dates back to the beginning of the Jewish people, when the fugitives from Egypt pledged to unite “as one man with one heart,” established their nationhood, and were immediately tasked with being “a light unto nations,” meaning with sharing their unity by way of example.

For nearly two millennia afterwards, our ancestors struggled with their internal conflicts and frictions. They were exiled and returned, fought each other and reunited, until they finally lost the battle against internal hatred and were banished from their land.

But the mission they had been given back at Mt. Sinai was never abrogated. Two thousand years ago, The Book of Zohar wrote about how the Jews should bring about world peace by setting an example: “‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to also sit together.’ These are the friends as they sit together, and are not separated from one another. At first, they seem like people at war, wishing to kill one another … then they return to being in brotherly love. …And … as you were in fondness and love before, henceforth you will also not part from one another … and by your merit, there will be peace in the world.”

Whenever and wherever there is division, the Jews are blamed for it because people feel (even if they can’t verbalize it) that had the Jews done their job, they wouldn’t be fighting one another. Even our own Talmud admits that “No calamity comes to the world but because of Israel” (Yevamot 63a), so what can we expect from other nations?

If we want to eliminate antisemitism, we should do our task, unite above all our (countless) divisions, and be a role model to humanity. Then the force that drives antisemitism will turn the hatred around as the nations will see that they are finally getting from the Jews what they always felt the Jews should have given them: an example of unity and solidarity.

The Secret To Abraham’s Success

 

The property of mercy, Hesed, was the secret of Abraham’s successful dissemination of knowledge about the Creator because it is love that opens a person to the whole world.

Therefore, Abraham managed to explain to the Babylonians what needs to be done in this life in order to ascend to the level of the Creator. The ones who heard him followed him, but Abraham wanted to save everyone. Likewise, today we must continue the work of Abraham.

We are obliged to open ourselves to everyone in the same way Abraham did and tell everyone about the purpose of life, the purpose of creation, about the correction that man must make. This was the beginning of the correction of every person, of the whole world, which Abraham accomplished. And we need to keep going the same way.

This will be mercy because we will explain to everyone that there is an opportunity to live forever, to achieve perfection, health, and knowledge, everything that one could wish for, to be filled with all the blessings. And it all starts with the quality of Hesed, mercy. This is the first correction of the desire to enjoy.

Everyone must find out why we exist, what form we must come to, and how to implement all this so that all the blows that we now feel pass us by.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/3/20, “Sukkot“

Sukkot—The Beginning Of Building The Soul

 

The festival of Sukkot symbolizes the beginning of building the vessel of the soul. The Creator created the desire to receive, which existed in complete bestowal. But this state was maintained by the power of the Creator, from above. This system was called Adam HaRishon, one soul.

But then, in order to give Adam the opportunity to grow, to become independent, and to realize where he is, the Creator broke this vessel, this common soul. And this is called the sin of Adam with the Tree of Knowledge since the huge egoistic desire was revealed and we exist with it to this day.

Everything happened in the way puzzles are made. First, a picture is drawn, then cut into many pieces so that children can play and put it back together. The Creator deliberately led us to sin with the Tree of Knowledge so that the serpent, our terrible desire to receive, would be revealed. And for 6,000 years now, we must correct Malchut by organizing the qualities of the Sefirot in it: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod.

We are now entering the final stage of this period. Our Sukkah has a very symbolic appearance because for the first time we are practically starting to work as the last generation. The process of the final correction is starting.

The pieces of the puzzle, which each of us represent, are beginning to draw closer together. We must make a human form out of them so that all our desires unite and become like the Creator. There is a small piece of this puzzle in each of us. We only need to gather in tens, and then from tens in hundreds, and in thousands, as the Torah explains. And so we will try to build out of ourselves the form of man, Adam, resembling (Dome) the Creator.

This building begins with the simplest materials, the lightest desires in our soul. This is how a Sukkah is constructed from the “waste” that is separated from “food.” Food is what our desire to receive instinctively likes. And waste is what we naturally reject.

And by connecting with each other, we want to find out what is waste relative to our connection in order to raise this waste above our heads and to increase its importance above all our thoughts and desires that push us away from each other and prevent us from connecting.

We need to connect and become one person. This is the correction of all humanity, it must begin now during the coronavirus pandemic. With this and other events that will be revealed from above, the Creator pushes us to take action, shows us where we can start assembling this puzzle.

Kabbalah deals with the practical implementation of the program of creation, its correction. And now we are working on the first stages of this correction. We have already passed the stages of Slichot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, and now we are entering the period of the Sukkot holiday.

Sukkot symbolizes the corrections that must be made within ourselves, in our desire. The Creator created nothing but desire. In this desire, we feel this world as if it exists, we feel reality, and ourselves. But all this is only presented within our desire to receive.

We need to correct ourselves in a way that we will see ourselves as one person. A desire similar to the Creator is called Adam, man, and in it, we will reveal the Creator coming to embrace and merge with us. And it all starts with the Sukkah, with the fact that we build a connection between us in the light of Hassadim. This is not yet a real connection but only coming closer to each other.

The coronavirus pandemic shows exactly how much we are not able to get close to each other. If we get close to our egoistic desires, we bring each other diseases and harm. This is a living example of our bad relationship.

Therefore, we must try to organize everything both materially and spiritually so that all of humanity understands toward what we need to develop and how to correct ourselves and our world. All the forces, all the conditions that are now unfolding in the world are designed to push us to rise to the first spiritual degree.
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From the 1^_st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/20, “Sukkot“

The Gates Of Final Correction Are Open

 

We have entered the last generation, that is, we have entered the final stage of the correction. We are standing right at the entrance gate that open this period, but there is already the home stretch behind it toward the end of correction.

We do not know how long it will take and what states we will have to go through. But one thing is clear, we have already entered the final phase of correction and must leave it completely corrected.

We talked a lot with my teacher Rabash about this coming future. But today it has already turned from future into an everyday reality. It is necessary to connect with each other and find out the new properties within this connection because they will already be spiritual.

From these spiritual qualities, one must build a spiritual Partzuf, the roof of the Sukkah, that is, the screen and walls that refer to the general structure of the soul. Thus, it is necessary to gather and unite all tens together, all small Partzufim, each of which is built like a small Sukkah. Having assembled this puzzle, we will connect the whole desire to enjoy, completely turning it into bestowal.

I am very glad and touched that we are in such a process. Who would have thought that we would be so lucky to come to this? We are not able to appreciate what is happening now.

In order to ascend to the next stage of unification, you need to open your heart. Each new step begins with the fact that we open our hearts a little more—we feel that here I am obliged to open myself even more to the connection with friends. I cannot do it and I am sorry, I pray but by this the progress begins.
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From the 1^_st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/20, “Sukkot“

“The Reset Button To Restore Nature” (Medium)

 Medium published my new article “The Reset Button to Restore Nature”

For the first time in history over the past few months, the world entered what some scientists call the “anthropause” — from the word “anthro” (human), a massive halt of human activity. Countries worldwide, almost without exception, have experienced on and off lockdowns to control the spread of Covid-19. What have we learned about nature from this period? Has nature healed from the abuse and wounds inflicted by people throughout the centuries? Any pause, long or short, helps in the meantime until we change human nature.

The appearance of wildlife in urban environments following the reduction in traffic added a colorful attraction to people’s experiences during tough restrictions of movement. Sightings of pumas in downtown Santiago, Chile and coyotes walking down San Francisco streets, combined with the global reduction of pollution levels due to lockdowns, gave the impression of nature reclaiming its place and recovering balance. But this new situation is also posing new challenges. Predatory species are running more freely now, illegal hunting and animal trafficking is on the rise, and nature reserves and parks are feeling the pinch of economic crisis from a lack of visitors, according to international organizations.

Multiple global research initiatives are currently underway to assess the comprehensive impact of the pandemic on nature. In truth, none of the research will bear fruit if the human level is overlooked in the calculations, since the root cause of all imbalances in nature leads back to mankind. To the non-discriminating eye, it appears as if the animate level in the ecological web and the human level of interactions are two separate things. This couldn’t be farther from the truth because they are totally interrelated and interdependent.

We humans are all egoists by nature. What this means is that all of our thoughts and actions are ultimately motivated by a desire to satisfy ourselves and enjoy at the expense of anything and anyone around us. As egoists, we each necessarily perceive only the narrow slice of reality that we think might benefit us. We feel ourselves as largely separate from other people and things, primarily concerned with our own personal problems, each in a constant chase after ephemeral pleasures.

In contrast to the egoistic human perspective, nature aims to connect all its elements into a single harmonious whole. Within this harmonious whole, each part receives what it needs for its sustenance and gives according to its ability for the benefit of the whole — similar to the healthy functioning of the cells and organs in the human body.

While the egoistic quality of mankind increasingly clashes with nature’s altruistic quality, we will experience more and more blows. Blows from nature can appear as global pandemics, as we are now experiencing with the coronavirus, as well as in myriad other forms such as ecological disasters, for example.

Within this completely integral system, the human being is the most complex and qualitatively highest level of life. Human thoughts, attitudes, and relationships also hold the most powerful influence over nature’s other levels. It is extremely difficult for us to notice the extent of the burden of impact we place on nature. Thus, when nature deals us a blow, we seem quite clueless, helpless, and disoriented in our response — caught off-guard — because we are so totally unaware of the fact that the way we relate to each other determines how nature responds to us.

So what is the message that nature is trying to teach us through all the pains and problems it sends us? It is all for us to pause for a moment and start contemplating life, its purpose, and why we are suffering. Nature is sending us a cautionary alarm and wake-up call to rethink the direction in which we are headed. Nature is leading us to the understanding that we are parts of a single interconnected and interdependent system, and to recognize that we must reach a higher level of connection between us in order to restore balance in nature and discover its boundless perfection.

By sending us blows, nature is ultimately teaching us that we need to revise the way we live our lives, that we must recognize the bankruptcy of continuing to live egoistically as we have until today. Instead of trying to benefit the self all the time, we should act to benefit others. Nature is pointing out that by changing our attitudes toward others from egoistic to altruistic, we will enter into balance with nature and enjoy a harmonious, whole, and eternal existence.

Jewish Holidays Are Revelations Of Nature’s Laws

 

Question: It seems that the autumn holidays, which are called Jewish holidays, are actually worldwide holidays. Especially now during the coronavirus, I am starting to understand this more and more.

Rosh Hashanah (the beginning of the year) symbolizes the discovery of the law of love and bestowal. This is the starting point of humanity, and this is where the counting of time begins. Why is this not a world holiday? Why do we call autumn holidays Jewish?

Answer: These holidays do not apply specifically to Jews. These are cosmic holidays that refer to the upper force that governs our world as it enters new stages of its influence over us.

Question: What does this new year require of us?

Answer: We must change, conform to nature, and not destroy each other. We must stop being controlled by our egoism like small animals. Can you imagine if the animal world had such egoism as we do? They would have consumed us and themselves; everything would have been devoured. And so only humans have it. The human being is gradually consuming everything. We have already reached a dead end! We must realize that our egoism is evil!

This year is a turning point. I hope that it will be such that we realize our evil nature and wish to change it.

Question: Is this your wish for all of humanity? Is it to realize its evil nature?

Answer: Yes, this is my wish for the new year.

Question: Is not the usual wish for everything to be fine, for there to be enough of everything at home, for everyone to be healthy?

Answer: No, no need to wish for that because it will not happen anyway. What is the point of all sorts of impossible dreams, suffering, and so on?

Question: Do you think it will be bad?

Answer: It will be bad, but the main thing is for us to quickly realize the cause of this evil in us. Exclusively in us! In addition to finding the cause, to have ability to correct it and transform it to the opposite. Humanity does not need anything else.

Question: Do you think this is feasible to execute this year?

Answer: If we do not, this realization will come through great unprecedented suffering! It is better to do it quickly. Because when a period of suffering comes, you cannot stop it. It comes for many years and with it brings such destruction and cataclysms, both ecological and societal, with pandemics and so on; it would be simply terrible.

Question: Let us say I heard you, and even the threat that the suffering could be great, what do I do now?

Answer: Tell everyone how we can avoid it, how to prevent it from happening. This can only be done through good connections between us. Just like people cling together like little animals in times of great suffering, that is what we have to do now.

Question: Warm, kind thoughts, getting closer to each other, connection, and unity, this what it should be?

Answer: Yes. If not for the good, then to avoid the bad, but we have to do it.

Question: The next holiday is Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). What does it mean for the world?

Answer: For the world, the Day of Atonement is a manifestation of a great evil inside it, which makes us feel completely powerless. There is nothing we can do but ask for the upper force to help us understand, to help us cope with our inner egoism.

After all, there is nothing external. Everything that exists in the world is only an echo of what is happening inside us.

Question: So, am I already revealing the evil inside me? Do I reveal that this is the most terrible thing possible? What do I ask for?

Answer: I renounce it, I do not wish to use it. This is the meaning of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). That is, I do not use any of my egoistic desires. None! I make a restriction on them. Externally it is defined as the five prohibitions.

Question: What would I achieve if I were to do this?

Answer: You would have stopped working with your egoism. Then you can start building your attitude toward the world only from the angle of goodness and connection. This is characterized by the fact that you are building a hut.

Question: So, we come to the third autumn holiday of Sukkot. What is the construction of a hut called a Sukkah?

Answer: This is called “Sukkat Shalom“—hut of peace. It represents the screen, that is, the anti-egoistic force that covers all of us, all of humanity. This is what we need to build.

We can hide under this force. We can gather together, and in this way we want to live.

This is all that we need to do for the new year. If we pass through these states, we are ready for the new development which is the new year. This development is toward the complete unification of all mankind under such a world blanket.

Question: If this happens, should we not be afraid of the virus and all that?

Answer: The virus will disappear as soon as we wish to start moving in this direction.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/14/20

“Should Earth Get Rid Of People?” (Medium)

 Medium published my new article “Should Earth Get Rid of People?”

If animals and plants could speak, they would probably say that life was so much better before we humans came along. They’re absolutely right. A UN report found that no less than one million animal and plant species are at risk of extinction because of human activity. We are depleting the soil, chopping down forests, hunting down entire species, polluting the air, contaminating the ground, littering the seas, and we are doing this at an accelerating rate. If I were nature, I’d declare war on humanity a long time ago.

Nature will not wait for us to grow wise and start developing our positivity. It will expose more and more of our unscrupulous nature, as it is doing now, until we realize we have no choice but to change.
We regard ourselves as separate from nature, when in fact we are a link in the chain. Moreover, we are the apex of the pyramid. Currently, we are streaming negativity down through the entire system and all of nature is going berserk.

Consider this data from Times Union, for example: The August Complex fire currently burning in California has broken the record for a single fire as it surpassed 1 million acres. Moreover, the total area of land burned by California wildfires this year passed 4 million acres, more than double the previous record. And if that’s not enough, then here’s the knockout piece of info: The August Complex is larger than all of the recorded fires in California between 1932 and 1999, combined! Indeed, a noxious species.

But there is a reason for our being here, and there’s a reason why we were created so lame that we haven’t even the commonsense not to destroy our own home. While two forces — positive and negative — govern all of nature, only one force governs humanity. Instead of the balance between giving and receiving, hot and cold, birth and death, and day and night that streams life seamlessly for all of nature, the negative force is the sole ruler of our hearts. This is probably why it is written, “The wickedness of man is great on the earth, and all the intent of the thoughts of his heart is only evil the whole day.”

But as just, there is a reason we are born so evil: We have a mission to accomplish. Our vocation as human beings is to grasp the full depth of creation, and to do that, we must understand the thinking behind it. We were made negative so we could develop the positive side of our own volition, and learn how to integrate it with our innate negativity. If we accomplish this, we will restore balance in our own lives, in all of human society, and in all of nature.

But nature will not wait for us to grow wise and start developing our positivity. It will expose more and more of our unscrupulous nature, as it is doing now, until we realize we have no choice but to change. There is no question that we will have to develop the positive side about us; the only question is how much we’ll have to suffer until we understand nature’s “hint” and get to work on ourselves.

In fact, it isn’t hard. We have each other. The level of hatred that has surfaced in American society, but elsewhere in the world, as well, indicates where we have to start — with accepting one another. Human society is as diverse as all of nature. But while we cherish diversity in nature, we hate it in society. When we learn to accept one another and embrace the diversity of our cultures and ethnicities, we’ll have a chance at changing our environment, as well.

We are already at a point where huge swaths of land are becoming uninhabitable. Even within the continental United States, people are fleeing their homes from fires and from hurricanes, and parts of Europe are drowning in floods. In all likelihood, many of them will not be able to return. And that trend will only escalate in the coming years.

It is going to be a terrible decade for humanity unless we turn it into a decade of awakening. If we awaken to our task and start developing the positive force within us, start learning how to care for one another and for nature, we will reverse the trend. If not, our lives on Earth will be unbearable.