Jpost:“Rosh HaShana Is An Opportunity For Change”

The Jerusalem Post published my new article “Rosh HaShana Is An Opportunity For Change”

Considering the disasters America has been through this past month, it seems like Rosh HaShana couldn’t come at a better time. Actually, the words “Rosh HaShana,” come from the Hebrew words “Rosh Hashinui”—the beginning of change. We can only hope that the change will be for the better.

Jewish holidays are known for their culinary treats. But besides food and family gatherings, Jewish festivals have profound spiritual meanings. Rosh HaShana is not just the beginning of the Hebrew calendar; it is also a symbol of renewal. This is when we begin to scrutinize ourselves and determine how we want to improve ourselves.

Tasting from a fish’s head means that we want to be the head and not the tail. This implies that we want to determine our path for ourselves and not follow the herd blindly. We eat pomegranate seeds, and each seed represents a desire we have discovered within us, and which we want to learn how to use for the sake of others rather than selfishly. And the apple we eat symbolizes the sin (of self-centeredness), which we mitigate (sweeten) with honey, again symbolizing our desire to learn how to use even that primordial temptation altruistically.

The people of Israel coined the saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and to various degrees implemented it until the ruin of the Second Temple. All of our festivals symbolize milestones along the path of transformation from the evil inclination—namely egoism—to altruism, where we love our neighbors as ourselves.

Our sages tell us that the only reason why the Second Temple was ruined is unfounded hatred. That is, when egoism takes over, we fail and fall. We were established as a nation only when we vowed to unite “as one man with one heart.” When we broke that vow, we were dispersed and exiled.

No less important than our vow to be as one was the commandment we were given to be a light unto nations. But in the absence of the bond between us, what light do we emit? When we are united and we show it, we become a light unto nations and realize our vocation as Jews.

Today, mistrust and alienation prevail on all levels of humanity—from the interpersonal through the social, national, and to the international. Clearly, we are growing increasingly alienated from each other—the opposite of the unity and brotherly love that are so vital for survival in a world where everyone depends on everyone else.

The more we pursue the current trend, the greater the pressure that will be applied on the Jews. Deep down, the world remembers that the Jews once knew the secret to proper human connection. When that memory surfaces, it is vented out as accusations that we are warmongers, manipulators, and similar tirades that have become part and parcel of the anti-Jewish lingo.

Although we, too, are disconnected, we are the ones who can and must rekindle our unity. We may still be very far from it, but at least we can recognize the indispensability of this unjustly derogated value: unity.

Therefore, this Rosh HaShana is an opportunity to really make it Rosh Hashinui, the beginning of change. Here and now we should begin to change how we relate to one another. As we gather with family and friends, we must make it a point to rise above our differences and find the common goal of unity. And when we do so, the previously mentioned woes will be no more, since they all derive from one and only origin—our separation.

This year, let us spread some honey on our alienation and sweeten it with caring and concern for one another. After the recent tragedies America has suffered, it could sure use some mutual concern and mutual responsibility. And really, unity is all we need. Unity is all that the world needs, and is the key to our lasting happiness.
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What Is Evil?

Question: What is evil: the desire, the intention, or a particular combination of both?

Answer: Evil is what is not related to the Creator. Everything you can imagine that does not pertain to the nature of the Creator is pure evil.

It turns out that our whole world, all the forces, all the manifestations at various levels of nature, are absolute evil. In order to manifest Himself toward us, the Creator made a creation opposite to His qualities. It is called the desire to receive for self alone or egoism.

This desire can only feel itself, nothing outside of it. It has no ability to understand, conceive, or perceive anything else. Therefore it is the foundation of future evil. It is not evil itself yet, because the desire is not at fault for acting this way since it was created this way from the very beginning.

That is why the desires of this world, which pertain to inanimate nature, that is, to what exists in all the vast galaxies, to the vegetative nature that grows on our planet, and to the animal world that exists on Earth, including ourselves for we are animals in our bodies, all are the embryo of egoism. It is not egoism itself, rather a desire to exist, to fulfill itself.

Egoism is a term for what is above the animal level. As a rule, a person consists of part animal, and in this he is not an egoist because he wants to exist as any animal does. However, he also has something that exceeds his animal level, when he yearns for more than his material body does. That is already called “egoism,” although it is not a final state, but rather, “I want more.”

If I want more at the expense of others, with it I’m stealing from them, this is true egoism. If, however, I purposely behave in such a way to derive pleasure from being ahead of others at their misfortune, that is an advanced level of egoism. There are many different degrees of the growth of egoism.

In other words, everything that is inside us as people is egoism; everything that is in us as animals on an inanimate, vegetative, and animal levels are regular nature.

Therefore, egoism is a desire to get pleasure at the expense of others, when I rejoice at being ahead of everyone else.

Animals eat each other because of hunger. For example, a crocodile swallows a cow and then does not have to eat for six months; he had enough. The snake, after swallowing its prey, lays without moving with no concern for anything else. But not a person. As I “swallow” one cow, I already think of how to eat the second one, or at least catch it and hold it for later. Animals don’t really have that.

That is why everything that we do above our natural desire to fill ourselves is human egoism that is reaching ever-new heights.

In this we are different from the Creator. The constantly evolving egoism inside us that acts to the detriment of others is the root of the evil of our nature, and thanks to it, on one side we conquer the world, but on the other, we corner ourselves into a dead end.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 2/26/17

New Life #888 – The Era Of “Stress”

New Life #888 – The Era Of “Stress”
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary

Why is the human ego never satisfied? How does this situation cause the phenomenon of stress in our lives and specifically how will despair about fulfilling the ego bring a solution?
From KabTV’s “New Life #888 – The Era Of “Stress”,” 7/27/17

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From The Desert To The Land Of Israel

Torah, Deuteronomy 29:04 – 29:05: I led you through the desert for forty years [during which time] your garments did not wear out from upon you, nor did your shoes wear out from upon your feet. You neither ate bread, nor drank new wine or old wine, in order that you would know that I am the Lord, your God.

In the desert I eat only MAN (manna) because it is the quality of Bina, bestowal—there is nothing else. I feed only on the quality of bestowal.

It is my bread, my food, and my clothes—absolutely everything. Clothes mean all the screens (Masachim) that are on me. Food is the Light of Hassadim that I consume and live by. It means that all this is just adhesion to the Creator. I cling to Him with all the egoistic desires that arise in me, and thus I am cleansed of their egoistic fulfilment.

I live and am fulfilled only by the fact that every time I get closer and closer to Him. I receive a life-giving force from Him.

In other words, MAN are the degrees that a person goes through during the so-called 40 years of wandering in the desert, that is, the ascent from Malchut to Bina.

They are called rungs of purification, not rungs of realization of egoism to altruism but of purification, because I do not use the egoistic desires, I only rise above them leaving all my egoism below.

And when I start shovelling egoism that I left below, it means that I am already in the land of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/28/16

Ahead Of The Blows Of Fate

Question: If it just seems to us that we ourselves choose our destiny but in fact it has already been written in advance, then how does this program manage my life, how does it guide me through all the events?

Answer: You exist within this program as its passive element. It does not even need to control you because you are included into it as one of the transistors in the processor. Various signals go through this transistor and it seems to it that it lives an independent life. This is how you feel your personal life as a fragment of the general picture.

Question: In this case, how should I relate correctly to the various sad and happy events in my life?

Answer: Animals respond to everything instinctively in accordance with the inherent qualities included in the program. Therefore, they cannot have any independent reaction. People, however, have developed above animals and so they began feeling experiences associated with complex memory systems, and from them they built answers to the things that happen to them in life.

An animal reacts only to the momentary conditions, such as rain, snow, or a dangerous predator. But people have already begun to connect their destiny with different forces of nature, and therefore they started to worship the sun, the moon, and so on. They started bringing offerings to these forces, trying to appease them. This is how religions appeared.

Our forefather Abraham also made idols until it was revealed to him that he could not influence his destiny in this way. Religion provides only psychological help, which of course is also very important. But it does not influence the upper forces of nature in any way.

Question: Through what can you influence the upper forces of nature?

Answer: A person exists inside the forces of nature, under their influence. However, if he finds out to what goal they lead him, he will be able to go ahead of these forces. If he himself performs actions, even before these forces push him, then he will be able to advance voluntarily to the goal assigned to him.

The forces of nature advance him by sufferings, pushing him from behind, and he will advance through his own actions, striving to move forward.

Question: How will I find out to what goal the forces of nature are pushing me?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with this. By studying it, a person learns how to advance toward the goal. He will already have the vision of the state in which he should be.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #887” 7/25/17

Society Of The Future: Glory Of Bestowal

Question: It is written that the last generation will “have many methodical books of wisdom and morals that prove the glory and sublimity of excellence in bestowing upon others, to a point where the entire nation, from small to great, engage in them wholeheartedly.”(Baal HaSulam, The Last Generation). What is this proof?

Answer: Only those who acquire qualities of bestowal and love have the proof.

An inversion of perception of reality takes place in a person who receives the upper qualities. He begins to feel everyone closer than himself, more important than himself, and above himself. Their knowledge, feelings, thoughts, approach, principles, and decisions become more important to him than his own behavioral bases.

Through others, he begins seeing the world outside of himself and eventually realizes that there is a common, single, and kind force in the world that keeps everyone on itself and pervades the entire universe. It fills the world with kindness, love, interrelation, and the feeling of eternity and perfection.

This is what is revealed to a person who acquires qualities of feeling his neighbor.

He gradually expands his circle that starts from the ten consisting of people who are close to him in spirit, methodology, and purpose. Then to this ten he attracts external tens who are studying within the framework of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah, then he moves to the people of Israel because these people were in the state of mutual love 2,000 years ago before destruction of the Temple, that is, before the disruption of good relationships between people.

And only after this he moves to the rest of the nations of the world, as it is written: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 6/26/17

Is The World Within Me Or Outside Of Me?

Question: Everybody knows that The Book of Zohar speaks about a person’s perception of reality. It is written in it that “a person is a small world.” That is, the entire world is within a person. If everything is in me, then how can it be that someone from the outside intervenes in my reality and can even harm me?

Answer: He does not exist outside of you. He is within you.

You are arranged in such a way that there are antagonistic qualities and forces within you. However, since you have not achieved a state of inner harmony yet, instead of seeing all the negativity within you as some bad inner combination, opposition, and antagonism of qualities and forces, you see it from the outside.

All this is for you to correct yourself internally. You are specifically shown all the faults from the outside, so that it is clear to you what you must correct within yourself. After all, you do not feel this inside yourself.

Question: That is, ideally, it would be good to feel all this inside myself?

Answer: If you could correct this inside yourself, then outside you would see only simple white light, the quality of love.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/12/17

“And The Lord Will Bring You Back To Egypt In Ships”

Torah, Deuteronomy 28:68: And the Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships, through the way about which I had said to you, You will never see it again. And there, you will seek to be sold to your enemies for slaves and handmaids, but there will be no buyer.

None of the nations will want you to live within their borders. The fact is that the desires that are subject to correction, in which the point in the heart arises, cannot exist inside egoistic desires.

They will be pushed out by the law of equivalence of form, and therefore the Jews will be completely isolated from others. And where will they be? Speaking from the geographical point of view, it is simply not clear where and how they will live because the only place for them is the land of Israel.

On the other hand, in order to choose the path of correction, a person must have freewill. This is a problem. I personally hope that there will be another round such as the one in the days of Tsarist Russia when the first Jewish societies that returned to Palestine were born.

Comment: But then the Jews were running away from pogroms.

My Response: Perhaps such circumstances will arise once again when they will be forced to leave the countries of exile. But this time there will be a basis prepared for them, a reason to return here. We are preparing this basis.

Question: It is written: “And the Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships.” What does this mean?

Answer: To return to Egypt means to return to your egoism. If you are running away to some place, it is considered that you are running away by sea. There is no other way out of Israel, only by sea. All of this is explained in the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/28/16