“What Do Jews Have To Do With Inciting Anti-Semitism?”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 11/18/20

The editor of one of the papers where I write regular op-eds requested more information on my message that if Jews are not united, they bring anti-Semitism on themselves. Specifically, he wanted to know my sources for making this argument so insistently.

He is correct; people need to know where ideas come from, especially ones that are hard to swallow. Therefore, I have decided to write a series of articles that explain where Jews come from and why they have always been hated, with a few brief exceptions that also didn’t end well.

But before I begin, I’d like to recommend my latest publication on this subject, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism: Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord. It will give you ample information about the origins of the Jewish people, the root of Jew-hatred, what they ought to do about it, and how their fate relates directly to their unity or lack thereof. In this series, I will provide sources, but not nearly as much as you will find in the book.

In the first articles, I’ll focus on the origin of our nation. I will show that antisemitism, albeit without that name, began as soon as our nation started forming.

Abraham, the father of the nation, was an inquisitive man. The son of a venerated priest by the name of Terah, he, too, joined the family business and worked at his father’s shop selling amulets and idols. In Mishneh Torah, Maimonides’ renowned composition, the 12th century sage explains that Abraham “had neither a teacher nor a tutor. Instead, he was wedged in Ur of the Chaldeans [Babylonian city] among the illiterate idol worshippers, with his mother and father and all the people worshipping stars, and he—worshipping with them.”

But as just said, Abraham was inquisitive; idols didn’t satisfy him. “His heart roamed and understood until he attained the path of truth and understood the line of justice with his own correct wisdom,” writes Maimonides.

Abraham understood that there was only one force in the world, and called that force “God.” To his idol worshipping contemporaries, this was revolutionary thinking, “blasphemy,” if you will. Despite the objection of his father and even the dismay of King Nimrod, Abraham insisted on spreading the message to his countryfolk. “He planted this tenet in their hearts and composed books about it,” writes Maimonides. He “taught his son, Isaac, and Isaac sat and taught and warned, and informed Jacob and appointed him a teacher, to sit and teach and keep all those who accompanied him. And Jacob the Patriarch taught all his sons, and separated Levi and appointed him as the head, and had him sit and learn the way of God and to keep Abraham’s commandments.”

The books that Abraham wrote relayed that two forces emanate from the singular force called God: giving and receiving. They explained that all of reality consists of interactions between the two forces. When they are balanced, things run smoothly; when they are not, bad things happen.

Abraham noticed that in his days, the receiving force was becoming significantly more intense than the giving force. He noticed that people had become more self-absorbed, impatient toward each other, and tried to encourage them to be kinder to each other in order to balance giving with receiving. This is why to this day, Abraham represents mercy and kindness.

The Babylonians, proud and selfish, decided to build a tower that would demonstrate their greatness. However, the tower, which we now call The Tower of Babylon, was a testimony to their hatred for each other. The book Pirkey de Rabbi Eliezer, one of the most prominent Midrashim (commentaries) on the Torah offers a vivid description of the Babylonians’ vanity: “Nimrod said to his people, ‘Let us build us a great city and dwell in it, lest we are scattered across the earth … and let us build a great tower within it, rising toward the heaven … and let us make us a great name in the land.’”

But more important than their vanity, the commentary offers a glimpse into the Babylonians’ alienation from each other: “They built it high … [and] if a person fell and died, they would not mind him. But if a brick fell, they would sit and weep and say, ‘When will another come up in its stead.’”

Despite Abraham’s warnings that their way would lead them nowhere good, they mocked him. The book Kol Mevaser writes that Abraham “would go outside and call out loud that there is one Creator to the world.” Alas, “to the people, he seemed as though he were insane, and children and grownups would hurl stones at him. Yet, Abraham did not mind any of it and kept on calling.”

Despite the derision, Abraham’s efforts did not go unrewarded. After he was expelled from Babylon and left for the land of Canaan, he kept on circulating his discovery. Maimonides’s elaborate descriptions tell us that “He began to call out to the whole world … wandering from town to town and from kingdom to kingdom until he arrived in the land of Canaan … When [people in the places where he wandered] gathered around him and asked him about his words, he taught everyone … until he brought them to the path of truth. Finally, thousands and tens of thousands assembled around him, and they are the people of the house of Abraham.”

That was the beginning of the Jewish people—an assembly of people who had nothing in common but their conviction that receiving must be balanced with giving, and who were willing to toil in order to develop the quality of mercy within them.

In the next article, I will focus on Abraham’s descendants’ entry into Egypt and the beginning of Jew-hatred.

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“When Terror Strikes Close To Home”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 11/3/20

Eduard (Edi) Yosupov is a veteran student and a friend. He has been studying with me for 20 years now, and during most of those years he was living in Vienna. In 2005, I visited him and went to the local chapter of our worldwide group. Not far from there is Edi’s business, a medical aesthetics center. Edi does not live in Austria anymore; he moved with his family to Israel two years ago, but his clinic is still there.

Last night, Edi’s phone rang unexpectedly; it was one of his employees. With tremor in her voice, she whispered that she is alone in the clinic, the only one who didn’t leave in time, before the shooting started. She was terrified. A number of bullets went through the glass and into the clinic and she didn’t know where to hide. She said the other employees had left the clinic a few minutes earlier, right when the shooting started, and fled from the scene as soon as it started. Thankfully, they were unharmed.

Moments later, Edi’s phone started receiving pictures of smashed windows, bullet holes in panes, and blood, a lot of blood.

This morning, we met for a zoom conversation. Edi said “There is panic in the streets. They have closed the entire downtown Vienna and prohibited people from going to work.” The Austrians are horrified. “Austria is a neutral country,” he said, “and people ask themselves why they deserve this.” And, he added, “The shock among the Jews is the worst.”

This is where I stopped him. You can say whatever you want, but Austria is not a neutral country. Adolf Hitler was Austrian, Adolf Eichmann was Austrian, and Austria in general has a long history of antisemitism. Perhaps Austrian Jews like to tell themselves untrue stories to calm themselves down, but this is unwise and will leave them with nowhere to run when the time comes, and it will.

The event that happened yesterday is part of an escalating crisis at the end of which the Jews will be accused of all the troubles that afflict Europe and will suffer the same fate that Europe’s Jews suffered in the 1940s. Nevertheless, there are two ways they might avoid that fate: 1) Run away and look for a new place to settle. It was barely possible to do so eighty years ago since no Western country would accept Jews from Germany and Austria, and it will be much more difficult now, but if they’re not too picky, they might find a temporary haven. 2) Revolutionize the whole meaning of Judaism and turn it from a culture that focuses on customs and traditions to an ideology that enshrines unity above all other values in the spirit of mutual responsibility and the motto, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This latter option is the true essence of Judaism. Although it is very hard emotionally, and Jews have not been united since they waged a civil war inside the walls of Jerusalem before the Romans conquered it and ruined the Temple, but if they can do it, they will be safe and welcome wherever they are.

The essence of Judaism is care for others, as old Hillel said, “That which you hate, do not do unto your neighbor. The rest is commentary, go and study.” Only when Jews employ that motto, or at least do not hate each other, are they true to their legacy and to their mission to be “a light unto nations.”

It may sound counterintuitive, but internal unity is what the nations want to see from us. Being the light of the nations does not mean we have to preach to them or teach them anything. It simply means we should set an example of love of others.

We have given the world the idea that loving our neighbors as ourselves is the core of the Torah, but we are not living it out. In that, we are untrue to ourselves and the world feels it. All that the nations want is for us to be what we are meant to be, united as one, and then they will appreciate us and want us among them, and we will not have to go through the ordeal that European Jews are beginning to experience.

“Europe’s Social Ticking Time Bomb, The World Will Follow”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/31/20

Ire and frustration have erupted into the streets of Europe. Anti-lockdown protests and raging clashes between demonstrators and the police erupted in multiple cities across Europe, including Germany and Spain, and were particularly violent and widespread in Italy. Further restrictions for businesses and gatherings have been imposed in a new effort to contain the irrepressible pandemic, and people are reacting with a sense of desperate suffocation. The world is entering new challenges that will not be solved with financial or prophylactic measures, but will require adjustments within the realm of human relations.

Germany and France, two of the main European economies, announced new lockdowns for at least four weeks in response to the staggering, record high numbers of new coronavirus cases. As the virus spreads uncontrollably and the authorities fail to effectively deal with the crisis, where does it lead us? Since people see no solution on the horizon, we can expect the rioting to rapidly mushroom everywhere in the world, in every city, country, and continent. People will organize in every society according to their particular experience of the distress to express their anger, even in cultures which traditionally show more restraint such as the Scandinavian countries.

It is easy to understand what is spinning around in people’s minds. A person by nature is always looking ahead to anticipate his position in the future, what will happen to him and where life will lead. But within the predicament of this persistent and volatile plague, no one knows what to expect day to day. The present is full of uncertainty and suffering so the person is left with bitter apprehension about the future. By flocking to the streets it is possible to at least release tension and experience the comfort of a sense of solidarity with others, even though people may understand that it will not matter how loud they shout in the city squares or streets because no one is really listening.

In other words, deep inside, even if they are unaware of it, the main underlying theme of protestors is a hunger for togetherness. Demonstrators are ready to sit in jail for breaking the law, feeling that the sharing and common action are worth the consequences and pay off in the end. Common involvement adds a sense of significance and meaning to life. One can conclude from this that all the troubles, the diseases, are intertwined with a feeling of loneliness and a craving to rise above the distortions brought about by a culture of hundreds of years of ruthless competition, of thoughtless economic growth and development at the expense of warm connection between people.

The coronavirus is a force, albeit biological, which has caused great changes in us. The virus is helping us to understand that we live in an integral society and are longing for good connection with each other. The separation that was opening up between us—and also between us and the natural system—hit us hard. The coronavirus is certainly a direct product of our separation. Anger in the streets is just a symptom of our deep need for rapport. The remedy for all the suffering and pain of mankind is only connection.

The flip-flops about prospects for a long awaited vaccine do not help to calm humanity’s nerves. But even if one is discovered, the social problems will persist and prevail. Any financial bailout will always be felt as insufficient. Therefore, the only real solution is to cure our ailing human relationships which are the root cause of the world’s problems. Nature will keep influencing us in such a way that will oblige us to realize these truths and organize good connections between us, the only force that can neutralize any and every menace we may face.

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“To Wear Or Not To Wear? That Is The Question”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/31/20

To wear a mask, or not to wear a mask? That is the question! As the world grapples with the second (and sometimes third) wave of Covid-19, countries are debating if, where, and in what situations they should make mask-wearing mandatory. Authorities insist that masks are vital for preventing infection. This is true, but not for the reasons we naturally think about. Masks do not protect us from other people’s germs; they protect other people from our germs. For this reason, only if we all comply with mask-wearing regulations we will be cured from the virus. And in the process, we will be cured from the lack of mutual responsibility in our society.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Masks may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others.” Note the explanation that the CDC provides: “Masks are recommended as a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the mask coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice.” In other words, the CDC is telling us that masks aren’t meant to protect us from others, but to protect others from us. Put simply, if we all behave as if we are infected, we will obliterate the pandemic in a matter of weeks. Interestingly, it turns out that wearing a mask is an act of kindness even if we only want to help ourselves.

Nature, in its subtle ways, teaches us that giving is good for the giver. It opens our minds to the fact that we are dependent on each other. It shows us that only if we think of one another, we ourselves will be safe, as well. Because we are reluctant to become giving or caring, and focus on helping ourselves, authorities encourage us to wear masks for our protection. They are correct; masks do protect us, but only if other people wear them. When we wear them, we protect others!

The more attentive we become to nature’s hints, the more quickly we will learn how to conduct ourselves in the new reality it has imposed on us. In this reality, we are dependent on each other and support each other. We cannot live, even physically, without each other, and we must therefore build our social systems to cater to the needs of all the people. In the new reality, there will be no exploitation, alienation, or oppression because they will cripple the aggressor. Every harm that people do to others will come back to haunt them like a boomerang.

It is still unclear that this is where nature is taking us, but its subtle clues are telling us where we are going. Nature treats us kindly; it leaves us with a choice: to learn quickly, cure our world, and usher humanity into a new era, or remain obstinate and learn the hard and painful way that we have to protect others in order to protect ourselves.

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“France’s Swan Song”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 10/22/20

The protests following the beheading of Samuel Paty are France’s Swan Song. Paty, a schoolteacher, was murdered for showing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad while teaching about free speech. According to BBC News, “Police raided some 40 homes following the attack, and the government also ordered a mosque to close for six months.” It is far too little, far too late for France. The country is well on its way to becoming a Muslim Caliphate.

The Islamization of France did not begin recently. For decades, Muslims have been coming to France in search of a better life than the ones they had back home. Until approximately 2010, immigrants came mainly from what were once France’s colonies. These countries were referred to as “protectorates,” as in the case of Tunisia and Morocco, or as part of metropolitan France, as with Algeria. Many French citizens settled in those colonies, and while the French enjoyed complete freedom, the locals were oppressed.

After France retreated from the colonies, immigrants continued to stream into France as either cheap labor or as refugees seeking shelter from hunger and war. The French, for their part, implemented a policy of assimilation and encouraged immigrants to adopt the local language, culture, and faith, namely Christianity.

But since roughly the mid-1980s, France changed its policy from assimilation to integration, and the new arrivals were allowed to retain their distinctive cultures and traditions. That decision backfired. Immigrants did not merge into the French society successfully and largely remained strangers, with their own culture and their own religion, and a clash of civilizations began.

In the early years of this century, France acknowledged its mistake and reinstalled a policy of assimilation, but the wheel could not be turned back. In the second decade of the 21st century, immigration to France grew extensively, mainly from war ravaged countries such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, and others, and the French had no power to stop it.

Despite persistent warnings of the ramifications of unchecked immigration of radical Islamists, France remained hospitable to them, and they have rewarded it with death and terror. France has given up “retaking” many of its cities and neighborhoods, which have become “no go zones” for non-Muslims. French author Pascal Bruckner stated after the murder of Samuel Paty: “This is not an act of ‘separatism’; it is a declaration of war that must be dealt with accordingly.” However, the French people have no fighting spirit left in them. Even though they are by far the majority in their country, they feel powerless and helpless before their domineering “guests.”

Italian journalist Giulio Meotti, who often writes on Middle Eastern issues, recently wrote on the Gatestone Institute website, describing the current situation in France: “France’s elites… fail to understand the ideological war that the enemies of open societies have declared on them.” Another French author, Élisabeth Badinter, wrote, “[T]here is the continuity of our submission. I am convinced that if we had known how to say no, we would not be here. They all bowed their heads out of fear of appearing racist or out of patronage.”

Indeed, the French are unable to resist the takeover by Muslim fundamentalism. They have succumbed to their former subjects, but mainly to their skepticism about their way of life and principles. They no longer holler Vive la République! They want peace and quiet, but they will not get it. They will be forced to change their churches into mosques, their democracy into a caliphate, and their lives from freedom to oppression. The wheel of fate has turned on them, and the rulers are about to become subjects.

It will not happen overnight, but the process has already crossed the point of no return. We are witnessing the crumbling of one of the pillars of the Western world. And what is even more daunting is the thought that France today is Germany tomorrow, and so will be the rest of Western Europe.

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“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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“Why The Jonah Story Is More Important Today Than Ever Before”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/27/20

The story of Jonah explains that we need to place the benefit of others ahead of our own.

It starts with God giving Jonah a mission, which is to pass a message to the people of Nineveh that they need to repent their evil ways, and change their attitudes to each other from hatred to love.

Jonah, however, dissatisfied with the mission, escapes it by boarding a ship and sailing away. His getaway sparks off a storm. The sailors eventually comprehend that Jonah is behind the storm, and as a result, they push him overboard. In the ocean, Jonah becomes swallowed by a whale, spends three days and three nights in its belly, and afterward gets discharged to land, where he then moves forth to Nineveh to complete his mission.

Jonah’s story holds immense significance to the Jewish people, and all the more so today than ever before.

The Jewish people, like Jonah, have an inescapable mission. It is the same mission today as it was in ancient Babylon, when Abraham united them as a nation upon the foundation of “love your neighbor as yourself”: to generate Jewish unity in order to become a positive example of connection for humanity, i.e., “a light unto the nations.”

“The Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over. And these sparks multiply daily, like one who gives to the treasurer, until they are filled sufficiently, that is, until they develop to such an extent that they can understand the pleasantness and tranquility that are found in the kernel of love of others.” – Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Item 24.

Over the course of history, the Jewish people have felt how the interaction between them and other nations functions: During times of Jewish unity, e.g., the First Temple, both Jews and humanity prospered; and on the contrary, during times when the Jewish people failed to rise in unity above their differences and divisions, anti-Semitism reared its ugly head together with various crises that struck the world.

As time passes, and the Jewish people continue failing to acknowledge their mission—to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) above differences (“love will cover all transgressions”) in order to become “a light unto the nations”—they head more and more toward a situation where unity appears to become a grave impossibility.

Jewish self-hatred gets out of hand as divisions between secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, pro-Israel and anti-Israel Jews become painfully apparent. Unknowingly, the failure of the Jewish people to realize their mission heads them into a downward spiral of unfounded hatred, and prepares the conditions for an enormous storm.

During the Holocaust, the sailors in the Jonah story dressed up as Nazis; during the pogroms, they acted as Russians and Eastern Europeans; and during the Spanish Inquisition, they became Catholics.

In our era, we have just come out of the year with the highest recorded anti-Semitic crimes and threats in the United States, and a decade of anti-Semitic normalization around the world. Just after a spate of anti-Semitic crimes in New York at the close of 2019, concerned Jewish community members, lawmakers and politicians started expressing that a “slow-rolling pogrom” was unfolding in New York, and that the next Holocaust could take place in America—concepts that had previously seemed unthinkable in relation to Jews in America.
In the last few years, there has been a sharp rise in anti-Semitic crimes and threats running parallel to a sharp increase in many other problems: depression, suicide, drug abuse, social division, terrorism, and natural disasters, to name a few. The more humanity experiences crises and problems, the more their fingers point at the Jews as the source of their problems.

The Jonah story describes the roots of anti-Semitism.

Jonah’s escape from the mission he was granted describes the Jewish people’s escape from their role to unite above their divisions and exemplify that unity for humanity.

The sailors’ realization of Jonah as the cause of the storm, and the throwing of Jonah overboard today describes the rise of the Jews being blamed for all kinds of problems people experience.

The time will come when the Jews will have to be thrown overboard, and enter into the whale, i.e., undergo a serious scrutiny of what it means to be Jewish: Why do so many people hate the Jews? Also, how can the Jewish people improve the situation both for themselves and the world?

The question is only in how much suffering the Jewish people will need to experience until they reach that self-scrutiny: Is the current amount of anti-Semitism enough to spur on this self-scrutiny? Or, will the Jewish people continue escaping their mission, and will that suffering need to take on proportions of world wars and holocausts?

When the Jewish people agree to accept their role—to “love your friend as yourself” and to be “a light unto the nations”—will they and the world experience a new tendency toward peace, harmony and happiness, i.e. the whale that brings them to the safe shore, to Nineveh.

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“My Teacher And I”

 

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/22/20

One cold, rainy evening in February 1979, as I was doing my usual delving into Kabbalah books with my friend Chaim Malka, I realized that it was hopeless. “Chaim,” I said, “we are going to find a teacher right now.” We got into the car and drove off to Bnei Brak, an Orthodox city where I had heard that people study Kabbalah. As the rain poured down the windshield; I drove almost blindly, in zero visibility. But I was driven from within; I had to keep going.

Once inside the city, we had no idea where to go. Suddenly, I saw a man standing on the sidewalk waiting to cross the street. In the pouring rain, he was the only one around. I rolled down the window and hollered through the torrent: “Where do they study Kabbalah around here?!”

The man looked at me nonchalantly and said, “Turn left and drive toward the orchard. At the end of the street you’ll see a house across from it; that’s where they study Kabbalah.”

In that house by the orchard, I met my teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (RABASH), the firstborn son and successor of Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag, the greatest kabbalist of the 20th century, who was known as Baal HaSulam (author of the Sulam) after his Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar.

During the next twelve years, I served as RABASH’s personal assistant and became his prime disciple. I studied with him three hours in the morning and two hours in the evening with everyone else. I also studied with him while we were alone as I took him on his daily outings to the beach or to the park. I studied with him every other weekend when the two of us spent weekends in each other’s company, and I studied with him when he was hospitalized for a month on two occasions. I asked him all the questions that I could about spirituality, whether during lessons or while driving, or at any other opportunity. I asked him because I needed to know. I knew he was the last of the Mohicans, the final link in a lineage that goes back millennia, and I knew I would have to keep that teaching going. I recorded every lesson and took notes of his words. I absorbed from him everything I could, the outer and the inner meaning of the words, so I could pass them on when the time came.

After some years, when RABASH told me that I needed friends with whom to practice spiritual work, I brought him forty students. To them he started writing his priceless essays about one’s progress from a regular person to a kabbalist—who knows the innermost subtleties of human nature and one’s relationship with the Creator.

The essays of RABASH paved the way not only for his students, but for all of us, every single person. Now these essays are a lighthouse that shows the way to anyone who wants to achieve spirituality. They teach us how to relate to one another and how to relate to the feelings and states we discover within us along the way. RABASH, much like his father in his own way, was a pioneer, a trailblazer of endless courage, compassion, and love for humanity.

After his demise in 1991, people asked me to start teaching. RABASH had encouraged me to teach while I was still with him, so when people approached me I consented and formed a study group we called Bnei Baruch (sons of Baruch). Indeed, we aspired then and aspire now to merit the name and be my teacher’s spiritual children.

Today, as we commemorate the 29th anniversary of his passing, it is my hope that we will continue to merit the name Bnei Baruch, to walk in his path of love and unity, and to spread the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah throughout the world to every thirsty soul.

“And once I have acquired a clothing of love, sparks of love begin to shine within me, the heart begins to long to unite with my friends, and it seems to me that my eyes see my friends, my ears hear their voices, my mouth speaks to them, the hands embrace, and the feet dance in a circle, in love and joy together with them. And I transcend my corporeal boundaries and forget the vast distance between my friends and I … and it seems to me that there is no reality in the world except my friends and I. After that, even the ‘I’ is cancelled and immersed, mingled in my friends, until I stand and declare that there is no reality in the world but the friends” (RABASH, Letter No. 8).

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“From Left To Right, We’ve Tried Every Regime, But We’ve Never Tried Caring”

From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/2/20

The previous century was fraught with social experiments, which cost us heavily. Twice humanity became embroiled in world wars, tens of millions of lives were lost, as hundreds of millions lost their loved ones and their livelihood. In the second decade of the previous century, we tilted to the extreme left, with communist Russia. Some two decades later, much of Europe took a sharp turn to the right, with the emergence of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

In the middle of the century, after two world wars proved that neither extreme works, we went for capitalism and the United States became the world leader. With capitalism, we thought we’d found the answer. It basically ignored ideologies and allowed both democratic America and communist China to become capitalist superpowers. Instead of consecrating ideologies, it venerated money. And since everyone loves money, we learned to work together.

Yet, now even capitalism is failing us. The gaps between the haves and the have nots, and people’s inability to climb out of poverty have made capitalism yet another kind of tyranny: a tyranny of moguls rather than of rulers.

Today’s social tensions in America and elsewhere in the world, particularly in Europe, signify that capitalism too has run its course. We have no more options for government; we’ve tried everything. Now, either we introduce a new ingredient to mitigate the severity of the situation, or everything will collapse.

If we try to pinpoint the missing element in all the past regimes, we will see that it is caring, simple human caring for one another. All the previous ideologies tried to find the best social structure in a reality where people do not care for one another and exploit one another. In short, the previous ideologies tried to find a way to rein in the obscene, self-centered human nature. But since those who ran the countries were themselves products of human nature, their efforts were bound to fail. Now, for the first time in history, we are realizing that it isn’t society we need to change, but the people who make it.

If we teach ourselves to care for one another, it will not matter what form of governance we have over our heads. Our society will be good regardless of the government since we will care for one another. If human nature is the sore, we cannot bandage it or restrain it with a cast; we have to heal it.

And the first thing we need to learn is that diversity does not weaken. On the contrary, it not only strengthens, but enables life and evolution. Imagine what would happen to us if an organ in our body tried to force out or eliminate any organ that wasn’t like it. This is kind of what we’re trying to do every time we exclude another person, faith, or ideology. If we acknowledge the natural fact that diversity enriches and strengthens, we will find that even the most extreme ideas have merit, as long as they do not lead people to physically exterminate one another. Ideas, even the most extreme, lead people to question their own beliefs, polish their thoughts, and learn more about themselves. Without differences, we would be robots.

Granted, there is a lot to learn here, but if we start by agreeing that we are all parts of one, human family, then we will learn how to embrace the different, how to learn from one another and grow stronger, wiser, healthier, and richer together.

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