Opinion (Dr Dan Schueftan, head of  National Security Research Center – Haifa University): “We should only deal with managing the conflict which means to continuously engage in improving their life, but this is management and not an attempt to resolve the conflict. The root of the unique problem of the Israeli society is the fact that the Arabs are a minority in our state, but a minority that feels that it is the majority because it is the majority in the Middle East. The Jews, on the other hand, are the majority in this state but they have a strong feeling that they are a minority.

“The global situation affects the Arabs and they feel that they are part of the big Arab world. If the global Arab society tries to solve its structural problems and turns to barbarism, part of the Israeli Arabs also show their interest in these ideas. It is actually this paradox of consciousness of the Israeli Arabs that leads to the conflict and the confrontations which cannot actually be resolved. Any attempt to solve this conflict only worsens the situation and threatens the existence of the state of Israel.

“The point is that Israel appears to be a colonial enterprise, but the attempts to change it according to western models may destroy its foundations. The peace agreement of ‘two states for two nations’ actually leads to the creation of two states: a western one and one that is not Jewish, gradually turning the state of Israel into an Arab state.

“The Israeli Arabs have never seen themselves as Israelis and they don’t want to see themselves as such, but they wish neither to leave “evil” Israel nor join the ‘wonderful’ Palestinian state that will sometime be founded.. They want to live in Israel, but not accept it as their state. This is typical of the Middle East. The Arab society has realized that it will not be able to come close to western society in its standard of living. It is actually drawing further away from it and will not be any better in the future as the process of destruction in the Middle East continues.

“What stands in the way of the Middle Eastern states catching up with the western states is the intolerance and the reluctance to accept others. If a person treats his wife like an object, you can invest as much money as you wish, but it will never be a western society, and science and a western lifestyle will never be developed. Only those who exhibit extreme attitudes can count on the support of the masses.

“Arab immigrants in European countries and in the US develop their own self image, thus preserving from what they have escaped. The Americans stubbornly believe that democratic principles will be accepted by both the Arab immigrants and the Middle East; that everything will change for the better and everyone will live by western standards. But the genie is bursting out of the bottle destroying everything around it and things are getting worse and worse. The only saving of the west and of America is a change of attitude regarding the Arab problem.

“Of all the states in the western world, the situation is Israel is the best because we understand this problem. If anyone can save western civilizations it is us.”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah sees this problem as given to us from Above so that we will develop spiritually.

And, I see the same solution: only Israel can save western civilization!
[163946]

Related Material:
The Jewish Mind
Incessant War
Enough Of Being Outcasts

Filed under: Israel, Israel Today, News, Politics, Society, Spiritual Work, World - No Comments →

Question: I am an education student. You say that education is the only way to correct the current situation, but education is a long process that takes years. What is more, I am trying to do something in my local environment and I see that not only does it not improve the situation but it actually make things worse. What would you recommend now in light of what is going on lately in Israel?

Answer: Our problem is that we develop in a way that we seem to be the horse chasing the cart. We advance by impulses that nature summons within us. We change and then we see how evil we become in our new state and what we can do in order to become a little better.

Thus we always try to improve yesterday’s state, never today’s state, and certainly not that of tomorrow. This is the reason that our education system is ineffective, and as you say, “education is a long process.” If we bring up our children incorrectly now, we will only see that we were wrong in 20 to 30 years. You are right, this is a problem!

Therefore, even great experts in the field of education cannot provide the educational system that is right for the generation growing up today and which will run the world in 30 years so that they will have this method and be able to use it correctly.

We cannot come up with such a method by using our own minds! After all, we have not developed to the state in which we can develop the education system nor teach it to everyone so that we will be properly educated in the future either. We don’t know where nature will lead us in 30 years, but the educational system has to be corrected now in order to fill, correct, and complement all the differences and contradictions between us, as well as all the states that will be revealed in the future. We cannot even imagine what a person, an Israeli citizen, will be like in another 30 years.

This is the reason that I understand your question. You are right that the current educational approach is unsuccessful and that it cannot be. Only a person from the future can provide us with the right method, which means someone who knows the state into which we should develop. Therefore, this person already precedes his time and provides us with an educational system so that we will be ready for the future, although we haven’t yet reached it and haven’t yet developed internally for it.

This is the reason that we need the wisdom of Kabbalah that teaches us about us and explains the whole process of our evolution, to what state we reach at any given moment in our history, and how we should unite so that we will be ready, not only today or tomorrow, but also for the day after tomorrow and always. It is because this method is eternal and ready for any and everyone. Therefore, the educational system has to stem from the true sources of the wisdom of Kabbalah. It doesn’t mean that we actually need to study this wisdom, but this system stems from it, from the deep understanding of man’s nature and his environment.
[164040]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/2/15

Related Material:
The Proper Education For A Person
Education Of Parents – Guaranteed Benefit For Children
A School For Young Parents

Filed under: Children, Education, Israel Today, Kabbalah Study, Kabbalistic Sources - No Comments →

The Torah, “Numbers” 11:5: We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt free of charge, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. 

Question: Why did the memory of what they ate in Egypt suddenly come up?

Answer: The people demanded what would fulfill their ego. For this, MAN was spiritual nourishment, spiritual fulfillment from what I give when I fulfill and, turn towards someone. But when egoistic desires arise in me, I begin to feel their need the same way that they exist in these desires. Which means that the people really wanted the Light of fulfillment in these desires, the Light of Chaya and Yechida, which meat symbolizes. They were apparently saying, “We have no need for spiritual fulfillment, we demand meat.” meaning that which was in the ego. Egoistic desires arose in them called the “mixed multitude.”

But these desires specifically arise in a person from the perspective of his spiritual work, by convincing him, “You have no need for this; you can have it all right now if you go in another direction. We promise you both the world to come and everything that you want. Here, take this book, carry out what is written in it and everything will be okay. You don’t need to work on yourself.”

The desires of the “mixed multitude” obligate a person to examine if he is carrying out the Mitzvot (commandments) of this world correctly. They call upon him to maintain the Torah with the help of physical actions, rather than correcting his soul, his relationships with others.
[163349]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/11/15

Related Material:
Who Determines The Taste Of The Bread From Heaven (Manna)?
Would You Like Some “Manna From Heaven”?
The “Mixed Multitude” And Manna From Heaven

Filed under: Egoism, Spiritual Work, Torah - 1 Comment →

Egoistic Pulp

Question: Today, there are internal conflicts that are tearing Europe apart. How can we prevent the growth of hatred between the different sectors when we are working on union?

Answer: Integral Education will tangibly show people that there is no other way out. They are entering into a program possessing a global character to begin with, which clearly determines the future horizon—the union of the whole world.

After all, it is inevitable; the laws of nature obligate us to this. From year to year our development approaches general union more and more, in spite of the bloody attempts to stop this process, which in spite of it all is strict and continuous, no matter how much we may deny it.

What is the reason to struggle against the laws of a system that produced and developed us? I can shout at the top of my lungs that I don’t agree with it, but will this help me? The laws of nature are many times stronger than political movements, including the most extreme of them. As of today, these laws are deployed in two ways before us:

– World war using the most up to date means of mass destruction, which will be a death sentence for Europe.

– Salvation by means of balance with nature, which reveals itself as global, integral, unified, coherent, and balanced. This means that human society, and the Europeans in particular, must also achieve this.

So let’s begin. This is the choice of Europe and humanity.

Question: We are truly powerless against the laws of nature. I may disagree strongly with the aging of the body, but the body will age in spite of it all. What is the law that operates at the level of human development in general? And how does it come to be expressed today in the European Union?

Answer: According to this law, all of us will “roll” into cohesion, union, and oneness.

This is like a mixture of various fruits in a blender. At first it is still possible to distinguish between them, yet the blades continue to spin and the differences gradually disappear until a uniform “fruit pulp” is created.

And so it is possible to reach this union in a good, wonderful way, without wars, disasters and terrible spins in the “historical blender.” The general trend is that there is only one culture, the knowledge of which we are carrying. So let’s conduct connection workshops in families, in workplaces, in schools, in prisons, everywhere. Let’s teach people to connect. And since modern separation has already gone as far as it will go, let’s insert a component of requiring this common program.

However, it is important to work gradually here. Start with small groups, after that larger groups, cities, regions… gradually, every people will make an arrangement for themselves, and after that, the nations will also be able to find a common language in the context of international connection—European and global.

That is how the process operates, from small to large. Gradually we gather experience, build the required mechanisms and systems, organizing educators, teachers, guides, trainers, instructors, and other experts.

After all, in any case, nature will transform us into “pulp.” Until now this happened under very unpleasant pressure from its side, through wars, disasters, epidemics, and the like. At present, we can integrate ourselves within the general “pulp,” aware of the situation and direction of inevitable development.

Question: What is the technology for preparing this friendly “pulp” from individualists and egoists?

Answer: Education, explanation, presentation of the facts testifying that there is no other way.

Question: But what will connect between people? What will be the glue between them? After all, the blender just cuts up the ingredients.

Answer: We produce the power that connects between us through the efforts themselves, our efforts in consolidation. This force is also latent in nature; this is a global force. One only needs to activate it.

If we begin to build balance between us, taking steps towards union, then we awaken and produce the natural force of union. This force is integrated into the system; it is found in inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, but we awaken it on our level so that it will operate among us, within us.

Question: Basically, what is this force of union?

Answer: What is it that connects the parts of the whole? What welds the parts of matter with one another? What is the force of gravity that attracts objects towards the center of the earth? We discover it according to what it does.

That is also how the power of union, the “human force of gravity” works, when we truly yearn to be consolidated. Then it will help us.

We sit together, not even with any particular desire, and we begin to converse, to discuss the ways of reaching union; we begin to do something together in this way and then gradually we truly connect, enter into a welding between us, understand more, feel each other more.

Question: Why doesn’t this force help the European Union unite?

Answer: It is because from the start the European Union didn’t place before itself the right goal. In fact, its goal was a banking and industrial union for the sake of profit.

But we are talking about a completely different kind of profit—educational, human profit, the advantage of having a single heart with the universal nature that is absolutely completely integral. Its uniting force doesn’t act by itself in every case; rather it acts only according to our efforts, intentions and goals.

Specifically we human beings are capable of activating it. Along with this, we don’t have the power of union, but we have only the power of separation . Nature is welded and whole, yet human society is in contrast to that: We reject and hate each other; we are not interested in reaching balance. This is human nature and it is up to us to correct it. We correct it by means of the first steps in consolidation that awaken the power of union, and it will take care of us and give us the ability to truly connect.
[145629]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/09/14

Related Material:
Right-Wing Extremism In Europe, Part 7
Right-Wing Extremism In Europe, Part 6
Right-Wing Extremism In Europe, Part 5

Filed under: Children, Crisis, Education, Globalization - No Comments →

Writings of Rabash “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 6

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2015-08-09_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’9.8.15′]

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

Question: Many of my friends feel unhappy because they cannot find a suitable partner. What should one do in order to find true love?

Answer: First of all, you need to stop expecting some extraordinary qualities from others and find a person who understands how a relationship of love should be built.

Love is based only on concessions and on the fact that each yields in relation to their partner and enjoys having the opportunity to do so.

I do not demand from my partner special attention and care; on the contrary, all of my pleasure is in the fact that I am canceling myself for his or her sake.

Question: What is the pleasure in yielding to someone?

Answer: This is called love. When you give something to your child, don’t you receive great pleasure? The same can happen with respect to your spouse. You just feel that a child is closer to yourself in a natural, animal way, since you feel him as a part of yourself.

Your wife is also somewhat yours, but nevertheless she exists separately, is next to you, and has an independent opinion. But through the correction of love, this distance is erased, which is difference between my desires and her desires.

Presently, I feel only my own desire and hardly any desires of my partner. My desire is more important to me than his or hers. But it is said, “Make your desire like His, so He would make His desire like yours.” This is the condition of love.

Our desires need to unite into one. This is called adhesion. “Husband and wife, and Shechina between them,” as if we are one body. It is very simple, we only lack proper education.

To be able to love, a person needs to be brought up, educated, and prepared in special courses. There is a lack of such education for all of humanity. Until we learn how to reach such relationships, we will remain unhappy.

Question: Everyone is looking for love, but how do you convince people to attend such courses? I doubt that they will like this condition of sacrificing themselves.

Answer: This is because we are deceiving ourselves. We think that we are winning whenever we insist on taking a stand. But who benefits from this deception? We want to love and fulfill only ourselves by using our loved ones, our families. Ultimately, it brings us neither pleasure nor love.

We need to teach a person how to fulfill himself in the correct form, which is perfect and eternal. And this fulfillment is only possible by loving another, since one can always give to others and fulfill them endlessly, continuously deriving pleasure from it.

It is a continuous cycle that always comes back to me, and in this manner, I reach a feeling of absolute, eternal love, and even more—eternal life.

Since then I am not consuming myself and my environment, but on the contrary, I bring to life everyone around me with my love. Thus, I reach the feeling of unending ascent to a higher dimension, to the Garden of Eden, to eternal life. Love is paradise.

Therefore, there is no need to be searching somewhere for love, you simply need to build it.
[164078]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/30/15

Related Material:
Happy Holiday Of Love!
About Love And Success
Tears Of First Love

Filed under: Education, Family, Man and Woman - No Comments →

My weekly column appears in Ynet, the Israeli news and general content website. Here is one of my recently published articles, “Iran Nuclear Deal? Not Our Problem”

You thought the Iranian nuclear issue is our main problem? Think again. The nuclear problem is actually here. It is in the murky relations between us and not in the relations of Israel and the world. “Our nation is founded on unity and fraternal love,” says Rav Dr. Michael Laitman who finds a deep connection between the current situation and the time before the destruction of the Temple.

We have no time for ego games. The world is directing its boycott arrows at the wall of the Israeli fortress, putting us in a field trial. Very few countries will shed tears after pushing the red button, and there is no Israeli leadership that can tip the scales in our favor by itself.

Instead of leading national unity—and not the government, our politicians focus all their energy squabbling like kids in a sandbox, unaware of the existential threat hovering over our heads.

Bibi and Buji suggest the establishment of a national unity government and at the same time spread mutual slander, and politicians dance on the rising cost of living and in the background gas fumes rise, the only thing left for the ordinary citizen to do is to close his eyes tightly and try to escape thoughts of the fatal consequences of the Iranian nuclear agreement.

However, the facts speak for themselves. The nuclear problem is actually here in the murky relations between us and not in the relations of Israel and the Arabs, the Iranians or the Americans. These are all just symptoms of the central tear. Our nation is founded on unity and fraternal love.

The moment we divert from this path, the negative forces in the world immediately emerge, pushing us to hide in shelters together and remember that we are one nation. This is exactly what happened during the military operation, “Solid Rock,”[Operation Protective Edge] and those that preceded it. However, the moment the threat is gone, we go back to being stubborn, refusing to prepare the remedy for the next blow—to act together willingly and not through being forced to by the Iranians, Hamas or others.

Hate is a powerful force that leads to separation and destruction.

Today is the ninth of Av, and we are used to attributing historic, religious connotations to this day and forget that it is about us, about the Israeli society that was founded on the spirit of togetherness, just as in the time of the destruction of the Second Temple when Israel was divided into two camps accusing each other and fighting one another, thus even intentionally burning the food storages of Jerusalem and causing hunger in the city during the siege. It is the same today; the evil stems from us.

We live in the moment, but in continuous denial of our deteriorating state that leads us to destruction.

The first to stab knives of criticism into Israel in front of the entire world are Jews, and unfortunately, even here at home we cut each other’s flesh on the road, on Facebook, and in line at healthcare clinics, just like the Roman Caesar who waited for the right moment to attack Israel.

The social tear fills our daily life with evil all the way to the level of the individual, and unfounded hatred still dominates us. The pleasure of hurting others motivates us for better or for worse.

We were not taught that negative feelings and hostile relationships between us are actually what affects and formats our reality. The stronger the force is, the more hidden it is. Hate is a powerful force that leads to division and destruction. Our hate crushes the world.

No political move will lead to a solution. No external cover of a national unity government will be able to heal the human afflictions we cause one another. We must lead a cross-national move from the interpersonal to multi-sectors that will put an end to division among us in every aspect of life and will reflect positively on our national security and political situation. Now, just as in the past, it is only by improving the relations between us that we will be able to rebuild the Israeli society from its ruins.
[163595]
From the Article on Ynet portal

Filed under: New Publications - No Comments →

The Torah, “Numbers” 11:1 – 11:6: The people were looking to complain, and it was evil in the ears of the Lord. The Lord heard and His anger flared, and a fire from the Lord burned among them, consuming the extremes of the camp. The people cried out to Moses; Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down He named that place Tab’erah, for the fire of the Lord had burned among them there.

But the multitude among them began to have strong cravings. Then even the children of Israel once again began to cry, and they said, “Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt free of charge, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now, our bodies are dried out, for there is nothing at all; we have nothing but manna to look at.”

For what reason did the people begin to complain? After all, they had no presumptions prior to this.

It was because there was a “mixed multitude” among them. It means that all of the desires of the people still had not been purified of egosim since there were desires like these among them that are called the mixed multitude. They were afraid of the Creator, but worked for themselves, for their Pharaoh.

Imagine a person who has fear of the Creator and carries out everything that is said in the holy books, in the prayer books, and the Shulchan Aruch. What for? “I am carrying out everything that you told me to do, so you should be carrying out what you promised me!” This is called the mixed multitude.

The person apparently is living near to the Creator, and supposedly is providing himself with a future paradise. He could even die, knowing that nirvana (complete rest) is waiting for him. There are known cases when they stopped terrorists at the last minute, and they shouted that they wanted to die. This is because they already were ready to enter paradise in the next minute.

The mixed multitude tempts the people—meaning, desires that exist in every person—and they begin to complain. It didn’t get what it needs. The entire movement in the wilderness is a movement within nothing. The person doesn’t get anything, he must move forward, and that is all. They only give him a small sign, a small imaginary cloud that he is going toward something.

When will he be able to feel the presence of the Creator more clearly? It is when he violates something and gets it in his head, “Oh! I now am convinced that this is forbidden.” So, it follows that it is necessary to do something. These egoistic desires say, “We don’t want to be satisfied with a request to the Creator.”

For what was the intention of the MAN in the wilderness? It is specifically thanks to my being in the wilderness and having nothing. From a state of complete hopelessness, I can find the one and only way, the way to the Creator. I have no one else to whom to turn, and when I turn to Him, this is called MAN.

This means that MAN is the raising of my prayer, my request specifically to the Creator and only in the wilderness! Only when I am completely empty and I have nothing—not for the sake of the body, not for the sake of what is coming, and not even for the sake of the world to come—then I can turn to Him and I am filled with this. This turning to the Creator fills me.

In fact, I don’t get anything other than a unilateral connection with the Creator. If I act like this, then manna comes to me from Heaven. I am nourished by this, and I begin to fill my soul.

However, it is filled only through my turning to the Creator! So, this is not talking about MAD, about fulfillment from above (the answer of the Creator), but specifically about the imaginary, unilateral turning, without an answer that is not based on anything for the Creator, from a state of hopelessness.

If I don’t want any favors and pleasures from the world, if I don’t want anything other than a wilderness that makes it possible for me to turn to Him unilaterally (when, in general, I don’t know if I am turning or not), this is enough for me. This fills my soul. If I can move forward in this manner, then I enter the wilderness and pass through it.

It is said that there were all kinds of tastes in the manna. So, everything that I feel in the manna depends on how much I can join my egoistic desires to my relationship with the Creator. Then, according to this, I will feel that I am filled with all kinds of things.
[163345]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/11/15

Related Material:
Erev Rav Or The Mixed Multitude
“The Mixed Multitude” In A Person, Nation, And The World
“God-Fearing” Egyptians

Filed under: Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Comment: In one of your lectures you said, “I take off my glasses and the world becomes different.” For some, this expression would seem blasphemous.

Answer: What this expression is saying is that we perceive the world through our senses. Certainly if without glasses I see one thing, when I put them on, I see everything differently.

This world is felt within us, and according to how I set myself, like a musical instrument, I perceive, classify, and evaluate it. And this determines my attitude towards it. So I look at the world through my personal glasses, and if they are changed for me, this means that my internal orientation is changed, so I see another world.

The wisdom of Kabbalah directs a person towards a perception of the entire nature in which we exist, not only for this brief present time, but beyond it. It reveals to us the entire process through which we are passing, not only within a physical body but also in other emanations.
[163971]
From an Interview on RTN, New York, 7/21/15

Related Material:
Above The Matter Of Egoism
Perception Of Reality: From Newton To Kabbalah
Life Behind The Walls Of An Aquarium

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Perception - No Comments →