Question: How do we deal with the loss of a loved one? It is impossible to accept that a person was here right now and suddenly he is gone. The mind doesn’t agree with the fact that our life is temporary. Death seems unreal to us.

Answer: Doesn’t this attitude indicate that our perception is limited, that we are naive, immature, and lacking the understanding of our condition? We are not able to perceive life and death.

Apparently, we are able to perceive just a tiny fragment of our life, like little children, and we don’t know what is really happening in it. An encounter with death plunges us into shock, when someone was living and suddenly disappears. We look at a lifeless body and are astonished that this is not a human anymore, not a friend, not a relative. There was a person and now he is gone. How is it possible?

This person lived in me, was imprinted in my qualities, desires, feelings, and memory. And suddenly he disappeared. How is it possible that a person ceases to exist? Our mind can’t perceive it. And the problem is probably not reality itself, because nothing is eternal in this world. The problem is in our limited perception that is able to see only to the threshold of death.

Why is life arranged this way? Why is a person placed in a limited body that occupies a very small volume in reality? We attach great importance to this body, much higher and more significant than is due a physical body situated on the animal level.

We are used to the temporality of our existence and live very well with it. And not because we are not depressed with this knowledge. But because we live in and can’t see beyond this life, we are reconciled with the understanding of our mortality and console ourselves by masking these questions, convincing ourselves that this is life.

Humanity invents religions and beliefs that tell about the afterlife. People believe them for lack of choice because it is still some compensation for the impermanence of life that suddenly stops.

But in fact, this question requires a much more mature attitude. We can look beyond the boundary of life and death, beyond the borders of this tiny reality that we see around us now.

Would we be able to see reality on a higher level, i.e., stop perceiving it as animals that perceive everything only through their bodily senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch? Would we develop new, out of body organs of perception that are outside of our material body, its animal degree?

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains all this, which is why it is called the “science of perception,” as “Kabbalah” means “reception.”

Kabbalah helps us to open our eyes and see the real, wider reality right here and now, not after the death of the physical body.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/5/16

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Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 01:39 – 01:40: [Moreover] your little ones, whom you said will be prey, and your children, who on that day did not know good and evil, they will go there and I will give it to them, and they will possess it. But as for you, turn yourselves around and journey into the desert by way of the Red Sea.

Children born during the journey in the desert will be able to enter the land of Israel because they weren’t in Egyptian slavery, in the slavery of egoism. They fought with it!

In other words, those altruistic qualities that were born from the corrected ego are ready to enter the land of Israel and work with egoism further by ploughing it, and those qualities that were in the slavery of Pharaoh are screaming constantly, “Let’s return to Egypt!” and therefore they must die.

The children will not be the prey of giants because they will be above them, above this egoistic power that is revealed in the land of Israel. This is the next stage after rising to Bina, the work with Malchut, with the common enormous egoism that is represented by giants.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/20/16

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Midrash Rabah, “Devarim,” 04:1 – 04:2: Moses asked, “Allow me to repeat Torah from the beginning to the Jews before my death! I want to explain to them all difficult places and details of the laws of the Torah!” 

Moses can’t enter the land of Israel because we enter it in order to conquer it, and Moses is on the level of pure Bina, absolute bestowal. Therefore, all his work ends in the interval from Egypt to the receiving of the Torah and its development.

The sons of Israel passed the first period of learning the Torah and its adaptation while wandering in the desert for forty years. They die during these years, meaning all the egoism with which they exited Egypt dies in them and gets fully corrected to bestowal.

Now they need to work with this quality in order not just to rise above all egoistic desires but to convert them into altruistic ones. Like a farmer in ploughing the earth, turns it over, allowing new shoots to come up, the same thing happens here.

And Moses is not ready for this. This isn’t his force, but the use of the lower egoistic quality, of the land of Israel that isn’t the land of Israel yet. It will become the land of Israel once it is conquered.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 1/20/16

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In the News (International Business Times): “British physicist Stephen Hawking has said that there is no God and that computers will overtake humans within the next century. The 73 year old dismissed any notion that there is a God in an interview by stating that science is able to explain the origination of everything.

“When asked by Spanish newspaper El Pais if scientists should believe in God, Hawking responded: ‘I use the word, God, in an impersonal sense, like Einstein did, for the laws of nature.’ This question was followed by: ‘Do you think humans would one day abandon religion and God?’ to which he retorted: ‘The laws of science are sufficient to explain the origin of the universe. It is not necessary to invoke God.’

“…[He] went on to say that the future of the human race could be bleak. He said that if aliens come to Earth, they could take over our planet. Hawking: ‘Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.’

“On the subject of artificial intelligence (AI), he added: ‘Computers will overtake humans with AI at some point within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours.

“‘I think the survival of the human race will depend on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe, because there’s an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth. I therefore want to raise public awareness about the importance of space flight. I have learnt not to look too far ahead, but to concentrate on the present. I have so much more I want to do.’”

My Comment: The wisdom of Kabbalah could be very useful for all scientists; they wouldn’t need to suffer for generations asserting hypotheses and then refuting them. Instead they could just discover the nature of God.
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In the News (Tel Aviv University ): “Most of us think that friendship is a two-way street — but that’s true only half the time, according to research from Tel Aviv University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Their new joint study says only half of your buddies would consider you their own friend. People have a very poor perception of friendship ties, and this limits their ability to influence their “friends,” according to the research, published in PLoS One on March 22, 2016. …

“‘It turns out that we’re very bad at judging who our friends are,’ says Dr. Erez Shmueli, who conducted the study with Dr. Laura Radaelli, both of TAU’s Department of Industrial Engineering, in collaboration with Prof. Alex Pentland and Abdullah Almatouq of MIT. ‘And our difficulty determining the reciprocity of friendship significantly limits our ability to engage in cooperative arrangements. We learned that we can’t rely on our instincts or intuition. There must be an objective way to measure these relationships and quantify their impact.’

“The researchers conducted extensive social experiments and analyzed the data from other studies to determine the percentage of reciprocal friendships and their impact on human behavior. The team also examined six friendship surveys from some 600 students in Israel, Europe and the United States to assess friendship levels and expectations of reciprocity.

“They then developed an algorithm that examines several objective features of a perceived friendship (that is, the number of common friends or the total number of friends) and is able to distinguish between the two different kinds of friendship: unidirectional or reciprocal.

‘” Dr. Shmueli says. ‘If you think someone is your friend, you expect him to feel the same way. But in fact that’s not the case — only 50 percent of those polled matched up in the bidirectional friendship category.’

“Why is this important? According to Dr. Shmueli, influence is the name of the game.

“’Reciprocal relationships are important because of social influence,’ says Dr. Shmueli, who utilized the ‘FunFit’ social experiment in the course of the research. ‘In this experiment that analyzes different incentives for exercising, we found that friendship pressure far outweighed money in terms of motivation. We found, not surprisingly, that those pressured by reciprocal friends exercised more and enjoyed greater progress than those with unilateral friendship ties.’”

My Comment: Indeed, we only see ourselves reflected in our environment. Therefore, we need to fix this some how.. On the one hand, we see an incorrect and absolutely false world. On the other hand, we don’t want to correct the incorrect mutual relationships between us, even though it is possible to correct them.

Question: At what point would there be correct assessment of reciprocal friendship?

Answer: This would be when all of us begin to work for closeness between us, without any connection to what is happening between us. This would be when our goal becomes connection between us in the center of the circle in order to attain the next level of development, to rise to the next level of nature, of creation, of formation. Then, we would no longer have any problems.

Question: This is very difficult for people.

Answer: No, we can do this as a “guided tour” on a spiritual roller coaster, and this will be a joy. This is wild spiritual fun. I recommend this to you!

Question: Even the researchers concluded that friendship is a stronger motivation than money. So, the most useful method for attaining results in every area is to perform work together with friends.

Answer: This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about. It is up to us to work together for the sake of unity. Then, we would have everything, including money, undoubtedly! This is because the upper force that manages everything in our world, including the regulation of all of our commercial problems, only comes down to a place where unity exists.

Question: Does this mean that everything I have will be enough for me?

Answer: Even more than that.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/11/16

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New Life 560 – The Holiday Of The Giving Of The Torah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

What is the difference between giving the Torah and receiving the Torah, how can one discover the good force inherent in the Torah and why is the general rule of “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), the entire Torah on one leg?

Giving the Torah and receiving the Torah are two different matters. The Torah is not a book, but a correcting force.

The Torah is the Upper Light, the Light that Reforms, the force that corrects our egoistic nature to love. In the past we used the force of the Torah and there was love among us, but then we were destroyed through unfounded hatred. Today we are not approaching the great general rule in the Torah, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), at all.

The “Torah of Light” is the upper force that influences us under special conditions and can change our nature. The evil inclination in us is composed of 613 parts; it is up to us to correct them into love. This is what is called Mitzvot (commandments). The more we develop, the more the evil inclination, our egoism, grows. And according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, now is the time for correction.

The evil inclination means that I want to harm others for my own benefit. It is written, “Thou shalt not steal” (Exodus 20:13) and there is a means provided for correction of the human ego, the Torah, which is connection to the concealed force. The Torah is eternal; at every moment it is possible to connect to the good hidden force; we only need to learn how to do this.

The “circle of connection” is a practical tool for summoning the good force into our lives. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that teaches us how to use the Torah, the force of Light, the power that is hidden in nature. The effort to maintain the general rule, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” brings this force to dwell among us.

When we were standing at Mount Sinai, there was mutual hatred between us. We wanted to ascend to love, and we received the Torah. In the divisive situation in Israel today, the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed as the “Torah of Light,” as a means for correction. Specifically, in Egypt, after we discovered the 49 gates of Tuma’a (impurity), which is the summit of separation, the need for the Torah was created. The Torah is given every day; it is possible to connect to the positive force that will build love for others in us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 560 – The Holiday Of The Giving Of The Torah,” 5/3/15

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Preparation for the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Igrot,” Letter 17

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Igrot,” Letter 17 – 2

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Giving of the Torah,” Item 15

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In the News (Gazeta.Ru): “French President Francois Hollande, speaking to the nation after the tragedy in Brussels, said bluntly: “We are at war.”

“ Is it so?

“The war is fundamentally different from just the instability, social and military-political tension, even a conscious escalation of intimidation. The fact is that the enemy attack is imminent. The essence of war – is an exchange of blows. They can not be prevented, only reflect an attack in response. …

“Is Europe ready, united in the European Union? Obviously not. A typical response to large-scale acts of terrorism in any country in Western Europe – are assurances that the criminals will not be able to get the free world to give up its lifestyle and liberal values. The main alarm – is how not to sow discord within their own societies, to not overdo the restrictive measures. …

“Rejection of war as a means of politics – is the basis of European integration. …

“The main thing – is not to specify a particular social group, as stating it necessitates doing something: a recipe or general political or police operation. By and large there is no plan.

“…each new terrorist attack will be accompanied by the same set of measures, which are already accepted: the tightening of migration policies, increased coordination of special services (limited even within the EU), passport control at internal borders, greater responsibility for promoting Jihadism, more closely monitoring the flow of information, etc. The effect of these measures are obviously limited, as they do not call into question (and can not) operating principles – administrative, values, behaviors. …

“The European Union is on the threshold of inevitable change, there is no doubt. What will it be in 10 years, a guess useless. But for Europe as a symbol of peace, stability and predictability, most likely, will be remembered as a wonderful dream.”

My Comment: Be sure they will soon find a scapegoat, a whipping boy, in the shape of the Jews and Israel, as I have already written that it is only natural to blame all the disasters and everything that happens on the Jews.

Only the timely dissemination of the method of general unity will bring the world to peace. Only this method will invoke the upper force that unites us, the Surrounding Light.
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In the News (Gazeta.Ru): “Love and a happy family life is not so necessary for people for mental balance and peace of mind, scientists have found. The Science Division of Gazeta.Ru tells about the latest research of psychologists and sociologists whose works were presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

“We all know that people who have a stable relationship and a strong family, have much fewer problems with their psychological state of health than those who lead a lonely life. However, does this rule apply (which, incidentally, is supported by research, and psychologists) to all people? This issue took a group of researchers under the direction of Utica Girma from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

“As a result of the work it became clear that a single life makes some people happier than a family.

“As the authors of the study say, people who are happier without a family, do not necessarily have to be introverts. Most often alone is better for those who seek to avoid conflicts in any of their manifestations: family life and relationship in any way involve a certain number of skirmishes and quarrels. According to psychologists, for those who always seek in any way to move away from conflict, a lonely life – really the best way to maintain mental balance. …

“Those couples who are already parents, the researchers recommend that: in order to avoid quarrels, which often follow directly after the birth of children, to share responsibilities for the care of the baby evenly. The research team led by Daniel Carlson from the State University of Georgia found out how parents should share the burden of child-rearing.

“The authors emphasize that the husband and wife should share the responsibilities of all types: passive (monitoring the baby during its play on the playground), interactive (communication with children), and physical (such as feeding and bathing). If everything is distributed evenly between the parents, their relationship does not fade with time, and their sexual life is still active. …

“The authors emphasize that the husband and wife should share the responsibilities of all types: passive (monitoring the baby during its games on the playground), interactive (communication with children), and physical (such as feeding and bathing). If everything is distributed evenly between the parents, their relationship does not fade with time, and sexual life is still active. …

“It was found that in 69% of the cases the breakup was initiated by women – but this is true only in cases officially registered marriage.

“If it was an ‘unofficial’ relationship break-up, the ‘contribution’ of both partners was approximately the same.
The study’s authors attribute this to the fact that many modern women perceive marriage as a ‘relic of the past,’ which, in their opinion, infringes their rights.”

Answer: The ego is growing and in order to keep a marriage together new, stronger marriage ties are required, if people decide to get married at all. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah the only means for a strong marriage is a sublime goal that the couple share, which is the revelation of the Creator, a perfect eternal existence. This can easily be attained in a good marriage. Any other relationship or agreement will fall apart as we reach the end of correction.
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