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People have been developing for thousands of years, and at some point they start to awaken the question of the meaning of existence; it is the main concern of a person if he has raised a bit above the animal level.

People don’t evolve like animals, which actually don’t change from one generation to the next. The desires of each generation change as every generation feels the desires of the next level of development and the feeling of emptiness constantly grows. Consequently, the question about the meaning of life begins to preoccupy us more and more.

We suddenly begin to wonder about things we hadn’t thought of before, and the sciences also develop according to the questions that come up in every generation because the questions that preoccupy a person in the 20^th century are different from the questions that concerned him in the 10^th century.

The question about the meaning of life that is manifested in humanity at a certain point is revealed only to certain individuals. Throughout human history there were special people in whom the question about the meaning of life arose that led people to compose music, literature, poetry, and to paint pictures. All this pushed us forward, developing science, technology, and machinery. A person not only aspired egoistically to a better material life, but also searched for the meaning of life.

Our desires are upgraded according to a scale of desires. First, the desires that are associated with our corporeal existence awaken: desires for food, sex, and family. Then human desires emerge, which are associated with internal fillings: desires for wealth, power, and knowledge. All the desires are transformed from one generation to the next and become finer, sharper, and more internal.

People began to feel the question about the meaning of life at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. The technological, scientific, and cultural revolutions in Europe were the trigger for the emergence of a totally new attitude to life and religion.

People no longer feared to be non-religious or to be prosecuted for dissent, which means that the ego grew to such an extent that a person could longer act like stereotypes anymore.

In the beginning of Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam writes: Indeed, if we set our hearts to answer but one very famous question, I am certain that all these questions and doubts as to whether we should study the wisdom of Kabbalah will vanish from the horizon, and you will look unto their place to find them gone. This indignant question is a question that the whole world asks, namely, “What is the meaning of my life?” So this question remains unanswered.

We may say that everything that happens today is because we cannot find an answer to the question about the meaning of life. We can see what humanity engages in and what it leads the world to! And it is all because people don’t understand what they exist for. “In other words, these numbered years of our life that cost us so heavily, and the numerous pains and torments that we suffer for them, to complete them to the fullest, who is it who enjoys them? The years that we spend, we spend searching, chasing, and suffering or even more precisely, who do I delight by living the way I do?” No one! It is indeed true that historians have grown weary contemplating it, and particularly in our generation. No one even wishes to consider it.

Why should I be preoccupied with the meaning of life if I understand that I will not find an answer? It is better to abuse drugs or alcohol in order to suppress the internal question that makes a person feel worthless.

After all an animal doesn’t ask that question, it simply exists by fulfilling its basic desires for food, sex, and family, while desires for wealth, power, and knowledge do not exist in the animal nature. It is the same with humans on that level so it is easier for them to live, while people in whom human desires develop feel miserable.

Yet the question stands as bitterly and as vehemently as ever. Sometimes it meets us uninvited, pecks at our minds and humiliates us to the ground before we find the famous ploy of flowing mindlessly in the currents of life as always.

That’s what we are trying to do subconsciously. We eat sleep, work, meet with friends, watch a football game, engage in hobbies, only to keep ourselves busy and avoid asking this question. After all, this question is worse than death; death is a momentary solution to the problem while one can live with this question for a very long time and come to nothing at the end except for self-torture.

This is the reason that Baal HaSulam specifically chose this topic as the introduction to his book Talmud Eser Sefirot. In this introduction he wants to show that a person doesn’t need any special thoughts or high goals in order to study the wisdom of Kabbalah.

If he feels bad, doesn’t know what he is living for, and this question keeps bothering him—because he cannot live for no reason and has to justify his life—then he has to discover the wisdom of Kabbalah because it actually provides the answer to the meaning of his personal life.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/31/16

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Question: How can we turn foes into friends? For me, it is like climbing Mount Everest.

Answer: You don’t have to do that. The Light will do it for you. We don’t have to correct ourselves in any way. If we try to do so we will only ruin everything, collapse with exhaustion, and curse the whole world.

We have to do something that’s totally different; we have to ask the Creator, the Upper Light, to do it since only He corrects everything. I have to tell Him that I want Him to correct this and that, and He will correct it. I don’t correct anything by myself. How can I do that? What tools do I have?

This is the main thing!

A person scolds himself for being evil, but it is the Creator who operates him. He scolds himself about his past and about the mistakes he made, but the Creator did everything. A person cannot prepare for anything since the Creator does everything. Everything is done on purpose only so a person will beg, ask, and convince the Creator to correct him.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/31/16

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Question: The Belgian government is looking for ways to restore a sense of security in the country and to protect its citizens from acts of terrorism. Following the last terrorist attack in Belgium in which 35 people were killed, the authorities have decided to oblige the immigrants who are not from the EU countries to sign an integration oath declaring that they accept the local values.

Only when they sign it will the refugees be allowed to live in the country. The document includes a pledge to prevent any attempts to commit terrorist acts, and to report any such planned actions.

Answer: There is a very simple method to tame animals by reward and punishment. We can tame tigers, bears, or any other animal without a problem by showing affection and patting them.

But it is impossible to tame humans, especially those who have an ideal and a goal. Therefore, signing such a document doesn’t guarantee anything.

Question: Interestingly, Belgium has not decided to stop the absorption of immigrants but only to oblige them to take an oath.

Answer: Of course, it is all good European behavior, but it will not work. If the Europeans want to put an end to terrorist attacks, they will have to fully comply with the immigrants, carry out their demands, convert to Islam, go to the mosque, etc. Once this is done and the absorbing country adopts this policy, the terror wave will cease. By the way, converting to Islam is a very simply process. So, if the Europeans are looking for a way out, the process of converting to Islam is the only solution for them.

Question: What will happen if they decide to close the borders and a right-wing fascist party takes over?

Answer: It won’t help. European tolerance still will lead Europe to destruction. Moreover, everything is done by the upper leadership in order to direct the Europeans, the immigrants, and the terrorists against Israel. Soon, a crusade will be launched from Europe against Israel.

Question: Why will everyone be against Israel?

Answer: Why did Hitler do that in his time, not only in his country but other countries as well?

Hitler conveyed a very clear message: the Jews are the source of all of the evil in the world and their common mission was to annihilate them. He his supporters that the only thing that stood in the way and separated people were the Jews, and if they were eliminated, people would be able to establish friendly connections between them, the right mutual connections and love.

Question: Will Europe eventually reach this conclusion?

Answer: Of course, Europe will become Nazi, and the Moslems will run this movement. Everything will be directed against the Jews in Europe and the State of Israel until we understand that we can resist that only by the unity between us.

The unity of the Israeli nation is essential to the world, not only in order to be saved, but also in order to reach the next level of our development and fulfill the goal of creation.

Question: These are very high words for an ordinary person.

Answer: If we don’t fulfill our role and unite, new gas chambers will force us to do so.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/3/16

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Question: The famous British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes that in order for the human species to continue to exist, it must settle on other planets. He is convinced that in another 100 years we will live on Mars, we will get energy from black holes, and we will create our own black holes. Hawking has lots of vitality and imagination.

Answer: Of course, these are fantasies. So, it would seem that we have had enough of life on Earth and we would run away from it to Mars. Then, we would jump from Mars to other planets and leave behind us everywhere the same civilization that we have on Earth.

What would force us to leave Earth and move to living on Mars? Our miserable, wretched development! So, would we run away from ourselves to Mars, establishing a colony there identical to the one on Earth? Why do we need to do this? What do we need energy from black holes for? Must we make black holes inside ourselves?

Without a person’s changing, there is nowhere to move! What is the point?!

Hawking is always dreaming that the conquest of heavenly bodies, which are actually stones, will provide humanity with happiness.

I remember how I dreamt about other planets in my childhood. I was ready to fly there and not come back.

Then what? What for? How would that be beneficial?

Suppose that I landed on Mars. I would go out, look around, and see that everything is empty and quiet. What would we do there? Would we reproduce in space suits? Would we sit in hermetically sealed houses?

Relationships between us would remain the same as they are on Earth. Well, we would duplicate the Earth in some additional forms? Unhappy Earth!

As long as we don’t change humanity, we have nowhere to go. Why do we need to spread the infection across the cosmos? Does this sum up the dream of the astrophysics? I don’t understand this scientist!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/30/16

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In the News (Lenta.ru): “In the history of humanity for those directly involved in the conflict, war has always been very unfavorable, a negative sum game. Once it starts, it means that somewhere something is seriously broken. …

“One of the parties had deep confidence that it had overwhelming superiority. Today such wars in general are unlikely, but not because there are no empires and small States, but because they have another way to assess their losses. Now an advanced empire believes that the life of a hundred of its soldiers is much more valuable than the lives of couples million soldiers of an underdeveloped country.

“There are also situations in which there is an outside factor that threatens a loss that is so great that you go to war, in order to neutralize it and take a smaller loss. …

“There are also positive third-party factor when, firstly, someone asks you to start military action and promises to compensate losses with interest.. .

“Of course, a major cause of many wars is an agency conflict when some strata or elites within a society gets benefits, while society at large loses. …

“A classic example of the impact of the agency – the so-called war of despair, when the elite or the ruling group in the country unleashes conflict to stay in power. …

“As in any game, you can get into the so-called trap, when the sides are drawn into the situation, the output of which is more expensive than entrance into it. A classic example – the injection of hatred within society to an external source of problems. At some point, society slips to the brink of no return, and the authorities are no longer able to hold back the situation because people are demanding war. …

“In my opinion, in the modern world is led to the wars, first of all, from the influence of external beneficiaries — third parties outside their space. What might their motives may be? For example, the weakening of the parties waging war, if it comes to a third party trying to buy elite to push them into conflict, misinformation and so on. There may be a role to play and the protection of their interests. Here it can serve its purpose and play a role in protecting their interests. …

“Sometimes it is extremely important in business to increase risks. High margins will appear only where there are high risks (for example, drug trafficking). …

“The presence of weapons of war is necessary for manufacturers both in terms of the increase in demand for their goods directly and indirectly: the more wars, the more risk, the more armed country. …

“In addition, war can be conducted in the interests of a particular market or to increase the price of goods on the market. While it is possible blockade of the trade routes to deteriorate the conditions of doing business for competitors. …

“The populace always loses in war as do both of the active participants in the conflict. Internal agents, too, often lose out, but those outside direct contact rarely do. External agents in indirect contact, which is not even visible in the war.

“The main opponents of the war – the growth of foreign trade. War never starts above a certain level of trade between the two countries, because such amounts can not be sacrificed. …

“The increase in individual welfare is another barrier. There is a formula for which the probability of war between countries is inversely proportional to the product of the squares of the welfare of the citizens in these countries. Hence, a good way to avoid armed conflict — stimulating growth of the material welfare of citizens. …

“Another barrier – frequent turnover of agents. There is a very clear relationship between the average number of years in power of one group and the number of wars in which the country participates. The shorter the term, the less conflict. …

“In addition, a very serious obstacle to war is a bloc of countries. Member states of military blocs very rarely go to war except when they have an overwhelming advantage. But conflicts with an overwhelming advantage are gradually becoming obsolete, as the strongest side in this situation pays a higher price. …

“Gradually the price of war is decreasing. For the civilized world the UAV or a cruise missile is far less valuable than the ordinary ones. Therefore, on the one hand, there is a tendency to increase the probability of wars of the first type, because the rates begin to fall – you can just send a lot of rockets somewhere and see what happens. On the other hand, it also makes war a totally different type of conflict – the so-called non-lethal confrontation or subversive war, hybrid wars that we are now seeing. In their course there are no contours of fronts, and is not clear, who with whom is at war.”
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New Life 535 –  Jewish Culture: Passover And The Israeli Society, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Why were the people of Israel founded under the condition and obligation to connect, how does the transition from hatred to love among a people improve the situation for all of humanity, and how is this transition connected to the story of the Exodus from Egypt?

As a society we have become stuck; not today but for two thousand years already. It was then that we fell into unfounded hatred. If we don’t function as a “Light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6), it is bad for us and for the whole world.

A Light to the nations means love for others. The people of Israel were founded on the principle of kindness and mutuality among people who are different, under the leadership of Abraham.

It is clear that every person is an egoist by nature. But the wisdom of Kabbalah brings the upper force that can connect us. There is no reason to wait for the leaders to bring us to a new place; the leaders are a reflection of the people. It is up to us to find the strength that will bridge between us over all the differences of opinion. “Love covereth all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12).

It is impossible to take an example from any other nation because they are all being totally destroyed. We have a unique way. We don’t need to correct anyone but only to build connection above all the differences, like in a family.

To do this we need a general process of social education. Without it Israel will be totally destroyed and so will the whole world. We have a method for connection, the wisdom of Kabbalah. So our role is to provide the world with an example of a connected society. We must give the steering wheel of the nation not to the right or the left but to the power of love, the higher power.

The practical implication at the moment is that we must concentrate on the education and information that is needed in order to learn how to connect. In the wisdom of Kabbalah there are connection exercises and activities that develop feelings of love between different people.

The Passover (Pesach) holiday represents skipping over/transitioning – the exodus from hatred to love.
From KabTV’s “New Life 535 – Jewish Culture: Passover And The Israeli Society, Part 1,” 03/19/15

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Preparation for the Lesson

Shamati #59, “About the Rod and the Serpent”

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 1

 The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Shmot,” Chapter “VaEra,” “Know this Day and Take It to Your Heart,” Item 89

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 10

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