Can You Be Anti-Semitic If You Don’t Know What Jews Are? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you be anti-Semitic if you don’t know what Jews are?“

Yes. I can be an anti-Semite even if I don’t know what a Jew is, because I feel, without any intellectual grasp of what I feel, but I simply feel that my happiness, the world’s peace and my advancement in life depend on the Jews. I feel that this small nation of 15 or so million people runs and manipulates the world, squeezing out its juices and energies, preventing human society from enjoying a good life. That is a subconscious sensation of every person in the world. Also, if one doesn’t feel that way, then it can awaken very quickly, since it lies latent within every person.

Between Me And The Egoistic Desire

The period before Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av) is considered to be not very good. Although Israel should be above time and the calendar, we nevertheless feel heaviness and the influence of this difficult period on us. There are growing problems in the world, climate anomalies, all kinds of conflicts. At such times, it is very important to work on the unification of society, which is the only remedy and opportunity to accelerate our development in the right direction and by the correct means.

We are holding a unity evening in these times in order to use the growing egoism and its awakening as a necessary force for advancement.¹

Society begins when everyone understands that the goal of our life is to develop toward bestowing to the Creator. By doing so, we become equal to Him in qualities, begin to understand and feel Him, connect with Him, and adhere to Him. Complete adhesion with the Creator is the purpose of our development and of the development of reality. The whole reality becomes one point of adhesion between us and the Creator. This determines the fundamental principle of our society.²

We are not canceling corporeal life. Yet, the main thing for a person is to achieve his eternal soul called “the divine part from above.” The soul is the adhesion of a person with the Creator. In order to reach such adhesion, we need to work together and support each other in the group. Therefore, first of all, we need to organize the correct society that is directed as much as possible toward attaining this goal of adhesion with the Creator.³

To bestow to the Creator means to fulfill His will through adhesion with Him, through equivalence of form. As He is merciful, so I must become merciful, that is, to reach love of my neighbor. However, in order to do so, I first discover hatred, separation, and rejection from others so that I would build the opposite quality above these qualities: connection and love. This is the work of the society.

Society should help and guide me in this work. I understand that I am lazy and that every moment I try to avoid working on connection, consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, I want the society to hold me in their arms, like a mother holds her baby, carrying me in their loyal hands. I am ready to give myself to society because I have already checked myself and realized that by myself I have no strength and brains, no chance. Let society make a human being out of me.⁴

In this difficult time before the 9th of Av, we need to pay more attention on how egoism governs us, confuses and lowers us to the animalistic degree by all possible means: problems with the climate, in society, at work, and in the family. This time, with all its difficulties, requires more connection from us, because it is the time of receiving the Torah. We could have received the Torah, but we were unable to do so, and therefore, we received destruction—the 9th of Av. This has already happened several times.

If the evil inclination is not revealed, we have nothing to correct and nothing from which we can build our connection with the Creator. One comes to the Creator from two lines: the evil inclination and the good inclination against it. I come to the Creator with my evil nature and ask Him to give me a good nature in order to neutralize and control my egoism.

Today, we are gathering for the unity evening in order to reveal together both our evil inclination and our ability to connect and reveal the good inclination. They are revealed one against the other. 1,500 egoists who understand that the desired goal can be achieved only in the vessels of bestowal gathering together. If each one could rise a little above himself, then through this common effort we will be able to raise a prayer, to ask the Light to separate us a little from our egoistic desire.

We are glued to the egoism, but we want to rise above it a little. The Light, like water, enters between me and the egoistic desire and I begin to sail above it as if on a boat, in my group. From there, I will already be able to start rising.⁵
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/19, Preparing for Unity day

Earthly And Extraterrestrial Pleasures

Baal HaSulam, “The Quality of the Wisdom of the Hidden in General,” Practical Learning: It is the nature of those degrees that one who attains finds in them tremendous pleasure and delight when he attains them. This extends from one’s coming into the will of the upper one… .

Question: Is it only about spiritual steps or in our material world, that pleasure is also explained by entering into the desires of the Creator?

Answer: No. By gradually acquiring the qualities of the Creator, one begins to feel pleasure in the state in which he is in our world. Also, an inner Kli is formed in him, an inner vessel for receiving this pleasure.

The pleasures of our world are very specific, small, earthly. They cannot fill us, because they are pleasures within the desire to receive.

Entering the desire to receive (for self), the pleasure consumes it, just like being hungry, I begin to fill myself with food and with every bite my desire decreases. As a result, I stop eating, although there may still be many dishes on the table, but I don’t have any desire for them.

Whereas extraterrestrial desires are based on non-egoistic receiving, when I receive not in order to satisfy my desire, but to satisfy the wishes of another.

And the other’s desires are endless for me. I am in front of a common system that has the greatest desires, equal to the Creator in its strength and force. This is the most incredible, infinite volume that I can fill with infinite upper light passing through me and filling completely this huge vessel.

Therefore, my pleasures will be infinite, if only I will treat the filling as something that I very much desire. Suppose when I feed my child, the more I feed him, the more I enjoy. But in the end, he is sated, does not want to eat more. What can be done?

In contrast, spiritual enjoyment is imperishable, eternal, infinite, perfect, because its desire to receive is unlimited. This is what a special principle of spiritual attainment is about.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 2/10/19

New Life #1126 – The Importance Of Food In Our Lives

New Life #1126 – The Importance of Food in Our Lives
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

A meal can fill a person materially and spiritually. We don’t like eating alone because we enjoy giving each other spiritual fulfillment. Food can be a means for connecting and integrating with people. The difference between eating a dish made by a chef alone and eating something simple with friends is the type of filling. We get spiritual nourishment when we relate to others with love and devotion, wanting to fill them with everything good, and to be filled with light.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1126 – The Importance of Food in Our Lives,” 6/20/19

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Why Study Pticha?

Why study Pticha (Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah) or The Study of the Ten Sefirot? Do I need to know how many angels are in heaven and what their names are? The fact is that we want to see a complete system in front of us, and therefore, it is very important to study it. We want to understand how we live in this system and become included into it by interacting with it. I affect the system and the system affects me, so I feel our connection. Therefore, I need to study it, perceiving it as a whole, closed, integral, and global system, including all worlds and spiritual objects, all forces.

Everything we study is included in a single system in which I want to see myself, understanding how I affect it, and how it affects me. I want to see each of my states as a consequence of this system. It includes life in this world and other states: everything is included in a single system.

It is important to receive information about the world, its history, economy, and crises, in order to perceive the most complete picture possible and understand where we are. We know that Baal HaSulam was interested in science and used all the information he had in his explanations. It is not written in vain that a Kabbalist must first study all the world sciences and only afterward will he understand what is happening above this world.

Therefore, it is important to study the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah in order to perceive the overall picture and become included into it, starting a conscious interaction with reality.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 92

Are We Currently Witnessing A Resurgence Of Anti-Semitism? (Quora)

Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are we currently witnessing a resurgence of anti-Semitism?“

Yes. We see that throughout history, there are periods where the hatred of the nations of the world toward the Jews rises and falls. Moreover, such hatred is distinct to Jews, and not to Arabs or other nations, and you could say that Jewish-directed hatred specifically has risen and fallen multiple times over 1,000s of years. Therefore, many have researched anti-Semitism but no one knows its causal foundation and how to solve it, and so it remains a problem.

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains the reason for anti-Semitism and why it rises and falls throughout history. According to Kabbalah, anti-Semitism depends solely on the Jewish people: To the extent that the Jews come closer to their spiritual root—a united people (“love your friend as yourself”) who shine an example of unity to the world (“a light unto nations”)—anti-Semitism lessens. Likewise, the more distant the Jews become from their root, anti-Semitism rises, reaching the genocidal extremes we have seen in the Holocaust and the pogroms.

Anti-Semitism depends on whether the Jews attain their spiritual root: to unite “as one man with one heart” and reveal that sublime connection to the world. The nations of the world sense that the Jews have a certain foundation, which the Jews are keeping away from them, and that this foundation holds the key for all nations’ happiness and prosperity. Thus, the nations of the world subconsciously hold a demand toward the Jewish people, that the Jews bring the abundance and truth that is locked away from them. The nations of the world think that the Jews know that they hold this key, but Jews themselves are completely unaware of it.

Therefore, in our era, the wisdom of Kabbalah carries an obligation to explain the role of the Jewish people, since a future of happiness and prosperity or a future of suffering and despair for everybody—Jews and non-Jews alike—rests in the hands of the Jews uniting and passing unity to the world.

The Source Of All Existing

Baal HaSulam, “The Writings of Baal HaSulam Volume 1, “The Quality of the Wisdom of the Hidden in General,” This Superior Principle Is Defined in One, Unique, and Unified One: It is obvious that the upper one is one. He comprises the whole of reality and all the times—past, present, and future—for one cannot give that which one does not have. Had the whole of reality and the existence of reality not been included in Him they would not have emerged from Him, as is evident to any scrutinizer, and without minding that we find corruptions in the manners of the existence of reality.

Indeed, know that this is the study that the sages of the hidden call “one.” The first to study it was Abraham the Patriarch. (This is explained in the Book of Creation and is therefore attributed to Abraham the Patriarch.) This means that there aren’t two authorities here—good and bad—but only good.

The fundamental principle of the wisdom of Kabbalah is that there is only one force, one goal, one path, and one movement, in the universe, that is, only one source, besides which nothing exists. Hence the saying: “There is nothing else besides Him.”

All that seems to us to exist besides Him, is in fact, Him. The fact that someone somewhere and somehow sees that something supposedly exists is just a slight misalignment, a difference from the center, when you have to combine two lines so that they hit the target slot exactly. Then, the person will again begin to feel that there is none besides the Creator.

All deviations from the concept of “one, unique, and unified” are given to us so that we will repeatedly strive to confirm it and merge ourselves with it. This is the goal of our development. Development is to enter and dissolve in this unity.

It does not fit into our mind, memory, nor in our analytical capabilities because for this we need to completely redo our approach, our view of the goal, the world, space, time, motion, and in general, everything. We should relate everything to only one sensation: I exist or He alone.

Question: So, I do not exist? Is there only Him?

Answer: Of course, I do not exist. I exist only when I differ from Him or when I merge with Him.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/27/19

New Life #1122 – Living In A Tribe

New Life #1122 – Living in a Tribe
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

We are supposed to connect with each other consciously, like in a tribe. Nature requires all creatures to act as they do, within their group, without any ability to choose. Ants and bees are completely activated by the collective mind within the nest or beehive. Only humanity has a developed egoism, which gets pleasure from harming and exploiting others. We connect above it with love, thereby attaining the root or the upper force. A symphony orchestra, for example, requires great work from each individual and the submission of each ego to the conductor. The process of connection between us is part of evolution. The prize will be the discovery of the Creator, the overall positive power.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #1122 – Living in a Tribe,” 6/13/19

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