In the News (news.ru.co.il): “On Wednesday, 2 March in Stavropol, began the trial of blogger Viktor Krasnov following the complaint filed against him by the social network VKontakte for insulting the feelings of the faithful. Krasnov wrote in his blog that ‘there is no God,’ and called the Bible ‘a collection of Jewish fairy tales.’ …

“At the end of 2015, the Investigative Committee charged Krasnov under the article on insulting the feelings of believers. by which Krasnov could face imprisonment of up to three years. …

“After the complaint was filed against Krasnov, the blogger had to spend a month in a psychiatric hospital so experts could establish ‘the extent of his sanity.'”

My Comment: It is clear that there is no proof of the phrases: “there is no God” or “there is a God.” Likewise, according to the Declaration of Human Rights and the Citizen that was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation November 22, 1991 (and still current) section 14 reads as follows: “Everyone is guaranteed freedom of conscience, faith, religious or atheistic activity. Anyone is allowed to adhere to any religion or not to adhere to any religion, to choose, hold and disseminate views and act on them provided that he abides by the law.”.

So the matter is not about whether God exists, but about insulting people with these statements.

It is said that “in the end of days”, meaning before the general correction of our ego, the ego will exceed its course and will be expressed in distorted ways, pushing people toward completely illogical statements and manifestations. We will see this all over the world and especially in Israel.
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Question: Suppose that infidelity happens in a family, no matter who it is. How does the wisdom of Kabbalah relate to this? Is it necessary to save the family?

Answer: Certainly, the husband and wife should try to understand each other, even though this is difficult and very painful. In spite of that, the family should be maintained.

Both men and women have a tendency toward adventure. It is more egoistic to divorce and leave the children without a united family.

A child suffers more than anyone else from the divorce. So it is worthwhile for both to have patience, go to psychological therapy, understand and agree that all of these situations are part of life.

Question: Among students of the wisdom of Kabbalah, are there immoral people like these?

Answer: There are no immoral people; they are simply egoists in need of correction. The wisdom of Kabbalah is involved with this, but it is slow and gradual. Therefore these days a person is given 70-90 years to live so that he can correct himself.
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From the Webinar on zahav.ru 2/10/16

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Question: How can we feel happy when we receive disturbances that the Creator sends us?

Answer: It is possible only according to the level of your ascent above the ego, when your intentions are truly in order to bestow and not in order to receive, which means only after the effect of the Surrounding Light and the appearance of the Masach (screen).

Question: How can one be your student and part of the system successfully without torturing himself by getting up early for the morning lessons?

Answer: You can watch them some other time during the day and do your best to participate in our events in a group near you.
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In the News (BBC): “The ‘wisdom of crowds’ doesn’t always apply – sometimes group-think nudges people to make wrong-headed decisions.

“The decisions people make as a group tend to be more prejudiced and less intelligent than the ones they make individually. ‘When people interact, they end up agreeing, and they make worse decisions,’ he [Daniel Richardson] says. ‘They don’t share information, they share biases. We’re trying to figure out why that is, and how we can make collective decisions better.’

“Richardson’s work on conformity follows a tradition in experimental psychology that goes back more than six decades. In the 1950s, the Harvard psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated that people frequently adopt the view of the majority even when it is obviously wrong, and even when they have to deny their own senses. …

“Group conformity stands in marked contrast to the “wisdom of crowds” effect, whereby aggregating the opinions of large numbers of people gives answers or predictions more accurate than those of any individual. This happens only when members of a crowd make their judgements independently of each other, and it is most effective when a crowd is diverse. In cohesive groups, on the other hand, where members share an identity, the urge for unity overrides all. ..

“’We think of the internet as an information superhighway. It’s not, it’s a bias superhighway. Twitter and Facebook are wonderful ways of sharing information, but it may be that because we’re sharing our prejudices, they’re making us dumber.’”

My Comment: The connection between opinions, which brings capability and not stupidity, is realized only in the connection of the ten principles. It is not the addition of opinions; on the contrary, there is a connection of denial of independent opinions. The members of the group aspire to annul their personal opinions and to unite efforts in creating one desire that is capable of receiving the idea from a higher level of nature.  Only in this manner can we rise about ourselves, and grasp the plan of nature, our goal, and follow it, remaining in a reasonable and comfortable condition.
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New Life #610 – The Messiah: Myth or Truth?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

All people have their own legends about what once was and what will be in the future and in between, a difficult daily life. The problem is that we are not familiar with the world we live in, its processes and purpose.

Contrary to what the world thinks about us, we don’t understand anything about the process of development that the world is going through. On the one hand, the people of Israel are close to the Upper Light, on the other hand, they lack any real grasp of it.

I have been involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah for 45 years and only through this wisdom have I understood what the Messiah, the redemption, and more truly are. I lived among the people of the world for 30 years; I felt in my being their special attitude regarding Jews.

We have a connection with the upper force that manages all of reality, but we don’t feel this connection. The resurrection of the dead doesn’t mean that physical body will come back to life; it is a particular stage in the development of the soul. The soul doesn’t belong to our beastly bodies; it is the development of a feeling and intelligence for perceiving divinity. The power that develops us spiritually is called the “Messiah” (Moshiach), it attracts (Moshech) us upward, the Light that Reforms.

Physicality means distance from, rejection, and hatred of others. Spirituality is love and bestowal. The power that helps me advance from physicality to spirituality, from myself to others, is called the Messiah. There is a private Messiah that has the power to develop Kabbalists in every generation, and there is a collective force of Messiah that is for all people. Is the Messiah already here? It is possible to declare that the Creator is also already here. Only someone who feels….

The establishment of Israel was the beginning of the redemption, but we have not yet realized the opportunity that we have been given. To accommodate ourselves to the concept of the Messiah, Israel must direct everything toward, “All Israel are friends.” Difficult or easy days are ahead for us; it all depends on us. The difference between exile (Galut) and redemption (Geulah) is in the letter “Aleph,” meaning, the revelation (Gilui) of the Creator. There is no need to wait for the Messiah; if this force approaches us without proper preparation from our side, it will be bad.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #610 – The Messiah: Myth or Truth?” 8/13/15

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Preparation for the Lesson

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter 1, Item 4

Lesson on the Topic of “Purim“

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Comment: Scientists claim that the greatest egoists are altruists, and it has been proven on a neurological level and on the economic level. There is even a term “altruistic punishment,” which is when we punish those who harm society, those who don’t make people happy, those who harm our freedom, and we enjoy doing that and as a result our ego grows even more.

Answer: Of course we can buy a person if we give him presents, serve him and show him love. He will thus receive continuous pleasure from us, will enjoy, will get used to the pleasures, and we will bring him closer to us. On the whole, this is a female’s work: when a woman supports and cares for her man, he feels that she is the motherly figure and needs her.

I don’t see anything wrong with that. That’s the way we egoists communicate. If I didn’t need someone, I wouldn’t even notice that he is standing by me. I always notice only what I need and what I can benefit from or the other way around, what disturbs or threatens me. This means that we notice everything that affects our desire whether negatively or positively.

The biggest ego is indeed the altruistic ego. It is a very sophisticated and developed ego. When I realize that behind every simple good action, like helping a small animal or taking care of a baby, I gradually tame it or I deceive it by filling its desire so that it will not be able to go on without my filling. I thus invoke a certain reaction in it and it feels that it owes me.

Question: If we only see the ego behind every action from now on, where will it lead us?

Answer: Nowhere. It is an advanced phase of the ego by which we understand how to work with other people who are also egoists and that if you treat them altruistically, you will buy them and will not have to manage them by force, but simply treat them nicely.

It is the same egoistic benefit but on a higher level, and as scientists realize today, this is how all the people will feel: that it is merely the same egoism. It is similar to the relationship between a mother and a child: The mother loves her children in a normal human way and gives them everything, and as a result, she needs them and they need her.

Comment: But people are sure that motherly love is true altruistic love.

Answer: We have to look at life a bit more seriously. I greet, respect and also love my mother who is still alive.

I know how I treat her, how I should treat her, and how she treats me, but we should understand that it is nature that invokes this feeling in us and not the person who educates himself to be like that. This is the difference.

We must understand that man operates according to the law of nature that spurs him this way, and this is the reason that he chases food, sex, a family, and love of parents.

It is different if he does that against his ego, if he educates himself to establish totally new relations with everything that is external to him, around him, the still nature, the plants, the animals, and human beings. Then every change he undergoes of his own will, as a result of education against his initial instinctive egoistic nature, a change that is the result of force and effort will be considered an achievement and therefore something of which he can be proud.

Egoistic Reshimot develop inside us, which are data records that are dictated to us, and we have to ascend above ourselves in order to attain a higher egoistic state. How else can I understand the next state if it isn’t depicted in me egoistically? This is how I feel it, “I want!” I want not only this world; I also want the upper world, the future that is above death and above everything. I want to see everything, to control everything, to understand and to feel everything.

Then I am ready to hear what the wisdom of Kabbalah says and how it helps me from now on. This help is given to me so that I will be able to act against my nature and then I invert myself internally and begin to think differently, not with the intention of in order to receive, but with the intention to bestow, not caring about myself, but by caring about others.

In this state I feel peace, a filling, and I don’t yearn for it anymore. It is totally different from the love of a mother to her child. She feels an instinctive love by which she fills herself, but here I fill others and not my own child to whom I feel a common personal human feeling, but total strangers who may be opposite from me and by whom I am repulsed. This is how we will reach the fulfillment of Kabbalistic consciousness. Although it is a great effort, we will succeed.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/4/16

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Question: Research in the US and Europe shows that one out of five women in big cities does not want to have children. Forty years ago, on the other hand, one out of ten women did not want to have children. What is the reason that the number of women who don’t want to have children has doubled?

Answer: Women have lost the motherly instinct and don’t want to have children. Even if they do, it is only later when they are nearing forty, so that they can enjoy life some more with children.

They take into account the fact that once they have a child they become trapped in obligations for life! It isn’t only financial obligations, but also their commitment to their child. This is simply unacceptable for the growing ego. Today everyone wants to be by himself, totally free, without even having to work. A person is connected to the Internet, he has a smart phone, and people don’t want to be close to anyone. Having a child is an instinctive connection to someone who depends on me and I depend on him.

The moment a woman becomes pregnant, she immediately begins to think only about the life that is being formed inside her and about the fact that she has to totally dedicate herself to it. Her world narrows and all her attention is focused on the embryo that is developing inside her. What’s next? She looks ahead and thinks about spending the rest of her life giving birth, raising, and bring up this creature. Will he live in 100-200 years? No he won’t. He will probably have his own offspring. So why take part in that and dedicate her whole life to that?!

Question: Does she think that a child will deprive her of pleasures in this world?

Answer: Of course, what is more, she feels that a child puts her in prison, that he makes her committed as if he ties her arms and legs and doesn’t allow her to think about anything else but him. The child will be stuck to her and pull all her attention. This is indeed how nature works.

Nature gradually increases a man’s and woman’s ego and allows them not to act automatically as earlier generations did. In the past a woman had to get married very early in life and have children, raise them, build a home, help them with their education, do whatever possible for them, and die. They will cry for her when she is dead, but is this what her life would come down to?!

This is a healthy scrutiny that the ego invokes in her, and she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t care where she will be buried, how, and by whom. She already pays taxes and has different obligations. All she wants is to live and not to owe anything to anyone, and especially not to bury herself while still young.

It is only if a person cares about the goal of creation enough that it obliges him to have a family, to have children, to raise them, and to take care of everything else; he will do it, but only when it is profitable.  .

And it will only be advantageous when he knows that he has to act the way that most people in this world do, which means to have children, to raise them, to care for them, to support them, and to help them stand on their own two feet, in order to attain the goal of creation. At the same time he has to correct himself and thus correct the world too!

When a woman has a child and raises him, she actually makes him perform his correction! This is going to be the only incentive to have children in the future. Otherwise, if at the moment one out of five women doesn’t want to have kids, in a couple of years one out of two women will not want to have children and the world population will diminish to half a billion people.

Question: What can a woman think about the goal of creation in order to have a child in the ideal state?

Answer: Our sufferings force us to find a clear answer to the question about the meaning of life. This is the only goal that a woman should have in order to attain the upper management and to see where nature or the Creator is leading us.

When we discover that, we will reveal how we should behave in every aspect of life in order to attain the eternal upper goal, which is considered upper in relation to our temporary life. Then we will feel the benefit in our ego and will have children, bring them up, and dedicate ourselves to the family.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/2/16

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Question: Very often, I have a question that I want to ask, and then another question stems from it, and then another question, and so on. It all happens at the same time.

Which question should I consider as the main question to ask the teacher, and what is this state called according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: This is an unconscious state, and you must continue clarifying it until it becomes clear to you.

Question: As far as I understand, we speak about a method for improving the relationships in the collective. Where can I learn about the way of becoming part of the collective?

Answer: Look it up in our workshop materials.
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