“Black Friday”

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 11/29/19

Each year, right after Thanksgiving, human nature runs amok. We call it “Black Friday.” Let’s not kid ourselves; retailers aren’t losing money on Black Friday, they’re making a lot more of it. So why don’t they sell at these prices all year long? Because we customers are not united.

I’m not trying to suggest that unity for the sake of cutting prices will get us anywhere. It won’t. If anything, it will make things worse because there will always be people who will take advantage of the situation at the public’s expense.

But if we’re willing to stand in long lines, spend a lot of time and effort to save a few hundred dollars (at best), think how much we could save by collaborating? How much we could save by building our commitment to each other, and not just to ourselves?

Audio Version Of The Blog – 11/29/19

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“What’s Wrong With The Media?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What’s wrong with the media?

Accelerated by the Internet, the media has become steroid-pumped with power, acquiring freedom, influence and control like never before.

Anyone can promote anything they want. If you are paying, you can control the media, and by doing so, control public opinion: society’s psychology, awareness and subconscious.

Individuals and groups guided by wealth and power motives thus methodically change public opinion, even using the media to manipulate legal proceedings and government elections.

People of law, such as judges, police and lawyers, have become involved in the media’s brainwashing machine, and all human systems have come under the media’s influence.

The media has become the influencer following us everywhere we go, in our hands and pockets, ears and eyes, all day, every day.

And who or what controls the media?

Money. Not an ideology. Not a plan aimed at educating and raising society to better connect and enjoy happier lives. No, just money.

Money is the worst fuel for a system. It is just quantitative units, where the more of these units you have, the more value you have.

How the Bought Media Has Contributed to Society’s Decline

Since so many people pump money into the media, and the media plays such an influential role in shaping public opinion, the media is increasingly feeling the power it has, and it has begun using its power in the most aggressive and egoistic way possible. Today, there is regular behind-the-scenes buying-and-selling in the media, manipulating power at the highest levels.

The egoistic use of the media is a major disease-like problem spreading throughout human society. It confuses people, since anyone can promote whatever they want, as long as they have enough money.

The more money a person aspiring for a position of power has, the more he can influence his opinion on society. Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s statement at a recent ADL conference contextualized the severity of what this means: “If Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem.’”

Since we value money and power so much, then we live in a world where those with more money—not wisdom, knowledge, expertise and experience, but money—control.

We see situations today where judges, i.e., people who need to be “untouchable,” have become influenced by the media to pass judgments with the fear of what could be done to their image in the media.

If we would start setting boundaries to limit the media that we consume, so that it would aim at benefiting the public and not merely the self-interests of those who take advantage of it, then we could prevent any further blind acceleration toward an oncoming wall.

The Solution to Bought Media – The New Media Review Organization

Although it seems unrealistic to discuss any kind of regulation on the media today, it would become more realistic if another major financial collapse struck.

The world as we know it today would come to a complete halt.

Picture the scenario that the stock market crashes. Money flow stops. Our exchange system—buying and selling by means of money—stops. Advertising stops. Nothing fuels the systems we’ve built to connect us. Everything stops.

Our constantly flowing competitive, materialistic and self-interest energized value system, based on money, gets shocked.

Since money stops moving and we wouldn’t be able to buy or sell anything, we would stop valuing money, and then we would be able to see how much money got out of hand.

At that point, we could envision a collective of people around the world forming, creating a new media review organization. Due to seeing the error in the way the media was bought by anyone who was paying beforehand and how our money-focused lives led us to a shattering, we would be more inclined to reach an agreement that the media needs to be reviewed and filtered in a way that cannot be bought by money.

Their role would be to make the media informative, and not act out of interests. It would start by closing off the Internet as we know it, so that there would be no fake political, economic and national promotions.

This new organization would define laws and boundaries for filtering out anything that could incite the public, with the focus on giving the public the information it needs, events described as objectively as possible.

The main team would of a diverse group of people from all backgrounds. They would be expected to argue regularly, but the leading principle they would be continuously reminded about would be that they need to reach a common agreement on what’s most beneficial for the public, and thus, the organization reviews and passes on information to the public in an unbiased manner.

They would also engage in learning about how to work together as equals, regularly checking to make sure that everyone in the decisive committee had equal weight.

Where Does That Leave Us Today?

The question is, do we need to wait for a financial collapse, where everyone becomes desperate from not being able to live the materialistic lives we currently live in order to undergo this change?

It all depends on how much we can raise awareness of the kind of connections we need to establish in human society. If we aim to connect human society to be as interconnected and interdependent as the technological, economic and cultural connections naturally revealing to us, then we would experience harmony. Likewise, on the contrary, anything we do that doesn’t head toward better connecting people will have negative side effects.

The media crisis we find ourselves in today comes to show us that we are nearing the end of an era of unconscious human development, one where the egoistic system based on money is positioned between all of us. It is a system that has no value other than the ego of the person who outcompetes others.

The more we suffer today from this system increasingly malfunctioning, the more we will have the opportunity to consider what it would take to wake up from our coma-like state and realize unity.

Human society today is gradually nearing this new awakening. All society needs is that its mental and emotional development match the connectedness of its technological and economic development, and then distances between people will fill up with the unifying force dwelling in nature.

Also, as I regularly explain, the Jewish people hold the key to pioneering this process of unity, and it depends on Jewish unity (“love your friend as yourself”) before expanding to the unity of humanity (“light unto the nations”).

Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 10/6/19

laitman_622.01Question: Are the spiritual worlds a mirror image of our world? In our world, love is first given and it is up to us to maintain it, while in the spiritual worlds do we have to first develop relationships that will become love?

Answer: This is not entirely correct. You are talking about egoistic feelings in our world, while in the spiritual world they are altruistic, so you cannot compare them. When we talk about the law of root and branch, the intention is for the lower levels to resemble the structure of the upper level.

Question: What is the connection of the Olam Ein Sof (World of Infinity) with the rest of the worlds?

Answer: Olam Ein Sof is a world that has no end, meaning that there is no limit for the quality of bestowal and love. It is infinite, and it is therefore called Olam Ein Sof.

Question: Where are the 125 levels found, and where does the final correction happen? Is it in the world of Atzilut or in Olam Ein Sof?

Answer: It is preferable to say that it is in Olam Ein Sof; this is more understandable.

Question: Are we correcting a part of our egoism on every level?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is there a correspondence between the levels in our world and Olam Ein Sof?

Answer: The worlds are a division of the 125 levels into five worlds.

Question: Does the concept of unity in our world have its root in spirituality?

Answer: Everything that happens in our world has a root in the upper world, all properties, effects, and actions, including the most evil and terrible, all descend from the upper world.

Question: How can I attain the upper worlds when I feel rejection and hostility toward people?

Answer: Rejection of people is a very good phenomenon. It means that you are in a state where you are aware of your own nature. Whether you agree or disagree is already a different matter, but you understand that you don’t love everyone, and even reject and hate them. It is your nature. A wonderful state indeed. It is a very good state for learning the wisdom of Kabbalah and it is also the beginning of correction.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 10/6/19

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Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 8/18/19
Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 7/28/19
Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips – 6/23/19

Family And Marriage, Part 5

629.4Family—The Basis of Spiritual Growth of the Masses

Remark: Kabbalah speaks of the importance of the environment, which would support the view that only the revelation of the Creator can be the motivation for creating a family.

My Comment: But this environment should not be the same as in a village, in a country, or in a small town where the public opinion of a poorly educated mass puts pressure on young people and obliges them to start a family and exist this way.

Question: Is this an education process, where from school age, a person should receive an explanation about the difference between masculine and feminine, the purpose of creation, and what is the Creator? If so, this doesn’t seem simple.

Answer: Indeed, all this will need to be explained. It is thanks to this upbringing that we will return to the family again, but in a different form.

We see that we are leaving the state when we need a family. In the past, people at the age of 16 to 18 thought about it and created it; today this isn’t the case.

Question: Is the family, as the basis for the connection between people, the beginning of the path of  a person’s spiritual development?

Answer: A person will grow spiritually mainly from the family. If we are talking about a Kabbalistic group, this is a completely different matter, and if about the masses, then the family is the basis.

Question: Is the family a model where I have a positive attitude toward my spouse and children because it is inherent in me by nature?

Answer: Not only. It will be such a model in which you develop spiritually. In addition, there will be male and female groups in which men and women develop separately where they receive upliftment, inspiration, and spiritual charge, and they realize them in the family among themselves.

Question: In principle, will these two cells remain two types of environment?

Answer: Yes. Male and female groups, man and woman in the family and their children, this will practically be the structure of society.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/1/19

Related Material:
Family And Marriage, Part 4
Family And Marriage, Part 3
Family And Marriage, Part 2

New Life 74 – Money And Quality Of Life, Part 2

New Life 74 – Money And Quality Of Life, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

If you are tired of travelling, perhaps it is time for you to invest in an internal journey of discovery. There is a new type of travel through which we incorporate into the environment, find the truth about ourselves, and penetrate the depths of nature. We can learn to open up our perception and attain unlimited freedom through the power of the environment.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 74 – Money And Quality Of Life, Part 2,” 9/12/12

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 11/29/19

Lesson Preparation

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Lesson on the Topic “The Work in Faith Above Reason”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]” 

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