Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.01.15

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A Slave Cannot Understand Someone Who Is Free

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is Passover, the exodus from Egyptian slavery, reminiscent of being born anew? The story starts with the tale of Moses’ birth and ends with the plagues of Egypt, which are similar to contractions during birth. After this, they cross the Final Sea, as if being born into a new world.
Answer: New life is conceived and cooked inside of the giant pot called Egypt. It becomes formed out of our discernments and attempts to understand how to cope with our egoistic nature.
Eventually, we realize that we are incapable of resisting our egoism and have no choice but to run away from it, that is, to rise above it. This requires qualitative changes: replacing all of our habits, forms of relationships, and the previous upbringing, which we received in Babylon.
When we start to unite using Abraham’s method, we acquire new habits, a new attitude to each other, and a new outlook on life, perceiving everything through glasses of unity.
This signifies a new birth because I turn into a new person, one who has learned to look at himself, his family, his nation, the world, and all of life only through our unity.
If I then meet my previous self, the way I was before I went through upbringing according to Abraham’s method and united with others, then it would be two different people who don’t understand each other. One of them is a slave and the other is a free man, independent of his egoistic nature. That’s because he has acquired a new nature—the nature of love instead of the nature of hate.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 3/22/15

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Is A Person Free Or A Slave To His Nature?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I don’t feel myself enslaved; it seems to me that I am a free man. So how is the instruction on the Passover holiday to represent myself as leaving the servitude of Egypt every year relevant to me?

Answer: It seems that we are free because we don’t feel that we depend upon each other. We try to arrange our lives so as not to be associated with anyone, so nobody will bother us. That is our nature.

For the sake of this independence, we invent new computers and mobile phones. In every house there are so many household appliances that require minimal help from others. This makes it easier for our egoistic nature, and we carry out its demands: I don’t touch anyone and try not to have anyone touch me.

But basically, all of us are connected and interdependent. It becomes clear that all the still, vegetative, and animate nature also constitute a single integral system in which everything is connected with everything else. So the wisdom of Kabbalah warns us that we depend upon one another and we will yet discover this dependence in the future.

If we don’t attain unity, then it will be very bad for us. In the meantime, we don’t feel the necessity for this to any great degree and because the wisdom of Kabbalah was not disclosed in the bondage of the previous generations, thousands of years it was in hiding. We didn’t have a need for it as we were not ready to discover that we are interdependent.

But today the whole world feels this mutual dependence. To the degree that it discovers this negative connection, it will turn to the Jewish people, for only this people possesses the method that makes it possible to unite above all differences.

There is a very great demand for this method in the world today. Therefore if we don’t convey this method to other people, we will feel very strong pressure. Anti-Semitism will continue to grow and the nations of the world will bring more and more claims against the Jewish people, blaming us for all their troubles.

They won’t exactly know the reason for their hatred towards us, but it is derived specifically from that. This pressure can be expressed in different ways, as we see in the attitude of the United States towards Israel deteriorating day by day.

Question: When you look at the world today, would you define our state as slavery?

Answer: Certainly, we are enslaved to our nature. I am always carrying out the commands of my inner nature and I obey them without any clarification, criticism, or opposition. I am simply not prepared to go against it.

My egoistic desire demands that I succeed and obtain benefit without considering anyone else. And if I am in an integral connection with others, how could I not take them into consideration?  I become limited in all of my actions.

Question: So the problem isn’t in my doing well,  but my doing so at the expense of others?

Answer: I cannot even succeed that way. Today not even an entire nation can succeed if it is isolated from others. All of them are discovering the necessity for connection with each other, but they cannot do this correctly. Nobody knows how to establish good connections between them: America, Russia, China, Europe, Jews, and Arabs.

Nobody can succeed and go out in the first place if it isn’t done through a totally good connection. It follows that the most successful will be the one who most accurately takes our mutual connections into account and acts accordingly. And this is what going out from slavery to freedom symbolizes. Everyone, all of humanity, must learn this.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 3/15/15

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Tuning In To The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Sometimes we say that the Creator is inside us, other times we say that He is in the connection among us. How can we link these two notions?

Answer: There is no dilemma here. How can the Creator be found? How do we regard and evaluate ourselves? What makes us consider ourselves good or bad, strong or weak? For that, we need an external measurement tool, a standard against we can measure ourselves.

In order to be able to measure ourselves, we should see the properties of those around us and compare our qualities with theirs. To direct ourselves correctly, we have to maintain numerous liaisons: remote and close, hateful and benevolent. We should deal with opponents and well-wishers, that is, all of humanity.

One target is insufficient to reach the goal. It is essential to tune oneself into connection with the Creator. For that, we need to involve all of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature. If we manage to set our minds correctly and if our behavior is absolutely right and positive, we’ll definitely attain the Creator.

All these properties are inside us. It is possible to attain the Creator only by relating to all four levels of nature positively since the Creator is the sum of kindness, love, and bestowal.

Question: When you talk about positive self-orientation, I instantly imagine the vastness of humanity, nature, stones, skies, and the entire cosmos. Is this a feasible task?

Answer: Reaching a correct mindset is very easy. You have to convince all your internal properties, the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking, that all that surrounds you is saturated with mutual love and is the best possible way of existence. If you succeed, if you manage to correct the properties that seem external to you, you will attain the desired state.

Question: Does it mean that I should work with things or people that are hostile to me?

Answer: Your enemy most clearly demonstrate to you your own imperfections and negative properties. It is called a help against you. With their help, we advance.

Question: It is said in the Torah: If someone comes to kill you, kill him first. How should we relate to this?

Answer: As soon as one finds a quality that one is unable to overcome, no matter how hard one tries to deal with it with love, understanding, and a sense of unity and yet fails to correct it, one must kill it. This is a correction. We kill our own property that is impossible to improve when it rises against us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/08/14

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Pesach Is A Holiday That Is Always With You

Laitman_115_04In order to come to the state of “Passover,” we must reach such a level of development where we are unable to work with egoism; we need to rise above it.

The outburst of egoism happened for the first time in Babylon. Against this eruption that took place when the population was not large, Abraham, a priest of ancient Babylon, discovered the system of ascent above egoism.

Several thousand people accepted this method, and they went together with him to the land of Canaan, present-day Israel. Abraham taught his followers what it meant to be in love with each other, rising above the ego and constantly stepping over one’s ego—Pesach (from the word Pasach, to pass).

Our ego is growing constantly, and we are growing above it, covering it by the law of “… love covereth all transgressions.” Transgressions remain, but, the greater they are—up to immense hatred—the greater love appears between us.

We do not hide our hatred, are not ashamed of it, because we understand that it comes from human nature, and our task is to identify in nature the next, positive force that will give us the opportunity to cover hatred with love.

Then, we will be in a constant state of spiritual elevation. However, hatred will determine the height of the love with which we cover it.

It turns out that we can continue to grow constantly. That is, each transition from stage to stage will become Passover (Pesach), the holiday that is always with you.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations about Passover,” 3/18/15

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Assembling The “Puzzle” Of Creation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As far as I understand, during his lifetime a person must discover something eternal, the higher force. How is this felt?

Answer: It is felt that the person discovers a network that connects all of us together, which means humans and things below them, the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, all of reality that is known and unknown to us, the systems and sectors of the entire creation, the entirety of nature. He discovers how this reality exists according to the single law of equivalence of form, reciprocity, unity, Arvut (mutual guarantee) as a single whole system. And the law that operates within this system is called the Creator.

This is truly a scientific discovery and there is no faith here, as there is among the religions, or bowing down before a higher force that dominates us, and that’s all. On the contrary, we must recognize and attain it.

This higher force that created us wants to be found scientifically and consciously so that we will become His partners in creation. He leaves work for us within that immense and powerful system that we discover so that we will complete this system through our efforts.

This is similar to how we give a puzzle to a child. We assemble the picture together with him, making it possible for him to add these or other parts to it. And then a complete picture emerges for us.

That is how it also is with the Creator; the comprehensive force of nature leaves us this “puzzle” with a few empty places. As we complete them, we begin to understand the depth of the entire creation, its essence and eternity. This is the most basic thing; we rise above temporal existence and our misery to a level of a perfect and infinite life.

This is precisely what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us, how to become aware and attain the higher force and become partners with Him.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 1/18/15

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Europe’s Future Is In Our Hands!

laitman_426Question: What is the future of Europe as you see it and what will be the solution to the impending problem of the immigration that the local population encounters?

Answer: Europe has been tolerant to the great number of immigrants without demanding their integration into their new home. Consequently, the national identity has disappeared, and now the ethnic diversity in Europe is too great.

There are two approaches to this problem: a multi-cultural society or assimilation.

I see the problem in the complete destruction of social ties. Society becomes global, integral but at the same time increasingly more egoistically separated. The social alienation is typical of the whole society, and they will not be able to restore the old civil society.

It can only be built by keeping the diversity and establishing a general cover of love above it. This is possible only by using the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah, and we can reach that either by the path of sufferings or by the path of the Light. The choice we make will determine the success of our dissemination of integral education (of the wisdom of Kabbalah).
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Like A Bundle Of Reeds—Plurally Speaking, Part 7

Like a Bundle of ReedsLike A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

Cohesion on a Global Scale

Returning for a moment to our common monotheistic forefather, after the expulsion from Babylon, Abraham established an isolated society that moved as a group and functioned in mutual guarantee. He created a social environment that supported bonding, unity, and cohesion, and attached all those elements to the acquisition of the quality of bestowal, the Creator. Our task today is to do just that, but on a global scale.

Because we really have become aware that we are a superorganism, clearly, we must function as one—in reciprocity and mutual responsibility toward each other. But since we cannot teach the entire world how to function in this manner, we need to show the world an example, and the world will do the rest through our ability to empathize, or as Dr Herrero put it, by “imitation and influence.” After all, when people see a good idea they naturally embrace it.

Therefore, when people see that the Jews have something that could work well for them, and that the Jews desire to share it, they will not only support us, but join us. This, as mentioned in the Introduction, is how Abraham gathered more and more people into his company as he was traveling from Babylon to Canaan, as “thousands and tens of thousands assembled around him, and they are the people of ‘the house of Abraham.’”[i]

[i] Maimonides, Yad HaChazakah (The Mighty Hand), Part 1, “The Book of Science,” Chapter 1, Item 3.

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 04.01.15

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” “Come Unto Pharaoh-2”

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts, “Your Right Hand, O Lord, Majestic in Power,” Item 295 

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption”

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