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My Thoughts On Twitter 1/23/20

Dr Michael Laitman Twitter

Unity of people is the vessel in which the Creator is revealed. The proper unification, where every person cares for the rest—is the only “idol” we are allowed to build in order for the upper spirit that fills the group, the ten Sefirot, to enter it.

My goal is the Creator; I want to care for Him the way He cares for me. But I have nothing that I can grasp since I don’t know who the Creator is, and I can fantasize about Him and build idols—that is what Abraham did. But then he realized that he could not reach the revelation of the upper force in this way.

The Creator clothes into my care for the friends, the ten. I cannot build a relationship with Him directly, but if I care for the friends, the Creator clothes into that care. I have practical work, which I can carry out and allow the Creator to clothe into it.

The Creator is concealed—He is like an impression inside our spiritual vessel, the ten. By wishing to bring joy to the friends, in order to thereby give pleasure to the Creator, I rise above self-care—all my care is transferred to the Creator. Care for the friends is the vessel (Kli), clothing over care for the Creator.

We cannot attain equivalence with the Creator by aiming at Him alone. It is rather by setting our perception toward mutual love in a ten that we aim ourselves at the Creator. Love for the Creator is realized and dwells within love for the creatures. This is the form in which I attain a connection with the Creator.

The system weighs out to each person according to the readiness of his soul. The Creator is a system, not an old man making a calculation for every person. Everything is wound up from the end to the beginning and therefore everything proceeds according to plan. At the same time, notwithstanding the plan, every person must strive to implement it on his own.
From Twitter, 1/23/20

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“The Cause And Solution To Israel’s Increasing Exemptions From Military Service” (Times Of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “The Cause and Solution to Israel’s Increasing Exemptions from Military Service

New data shows that every third Israeli designated for compulsory military service duty receives an exemption, and that most of them are under the mental health clause. The alarm bells went off since this statistic nearly doubled in the last four years, with the most likely explanation being that healthy youth are doing whatever they need to do in order to register as mentally incapable of serving in the army.

This phenomenon is not new but it does point to an overall downward trend in IDF recruitment. For example, when I enlisted in the Israeli Air Force some 40 years ago, the general atmosphere that enveloped everyone around me was that, “Soon this whole ordeal will be over with, and right after it’s done I’m flying away to wherever it may be, whether America, India or Australia. The main thing is that it’s far away.” This attitude gave the soldiers of the time a certain kind of fuel until their release date.

Obviously, the motivation for serving the country today is much lower. It is all the more so when the derogatory discourse of scorn and criticism of the State of Israel is a daily reality both inside and outside the country. In such a climate, who has the psychological strength and drive to undergo hard training and to fight devotedly for Israel? This general dissipated atmosphere raises Israel’s citizens to think that leaving the country is a much more desirable option than national service.

I, however, would in no way concede such service. Not only did I join the Air Force when I moved to Israel, but I raised my daughters to devote two full years to service of their country. The army is like a country within the country, where citizens from all walks of life come together and undergo an experience that unifies them, giving them a sense of a common identity within a surrounding climate that tears away at that unification. Undergoing such an out-of-the-ordinary experience to protect a common home is something that cannot be felt in any other setting.

It hurts me that we have developed such a disregard of the land of our ancestors. However, it is also clear to me that the inner spirit of Israel, the idea of brotherly love, cannot be eliminated. The Land of Israel will always be the central living spirit vitalizing the Jewish people.

Values that unify the people of Israel should be instilled in upcoming generations because if we continue business as usual, letting contempt toward the country fill our hearts, life will ultimately become worse not only for us, but for humanity as a whole. (On this point, I have expanded at length in other places about the vital role of the people of Israel.)

Thus, we must raise our youth to recognize the importance of our people and State. As part and parcel of our upbringing, we should learn about the essence of our spiritual root, the reason for being granted the Land of Israel, and our duty to unify and pass on this spirit of unification to the world. Through such an understanding, we would then realize the importance of protecting ourselves and our land from enemy threats. Likewise, when the feeling of importance in our role as a unique people and the value of our homeland fills Israeli citizens and especially the youth, then the recruitment percentages to serve Israel will rise accordingly.
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“What Can Be Done To Stop What Appears To Be The Rising Incidents Of Antisemitism In The United States?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What can be done to stop what appears to be the rising incidents of antisemitism in the United States?

The way to stop anti-Semitism in the United States is the same as how to stop anti-Semitism anywhere in the world: to raise awareness of the root cause of anti-Semitism in order to invert hatred into love.

Kabbalistic sources explain both such a cause and solution to anti-Semitism. It is because Kabbalists perceive developmental processes unfolding in our world, and can both warn people of oncoming threats, as well as offer a remedy to prevent such threats from materializing.

For instance, Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, tried convincing European Jews in the 1930s to leave Europe because he foresaw the oncoming disaster. Both following his example, as well as taking heed to the alerting recent rise in anti-Semitism worldwide, I also feel the need to communicate the message about the root cause of anti-Semitism and its solution both to Jews and non-Jews, and I extensively write and speak on the topic with the hope that, at the very least, a future mass tragedy can be prevented.

In relation to the United States, I have lectured to Jewish communities in the United States at various intervals over the last 20 years. During the 2000s, I was laughed at when I mentioned that anti-Semitism was going to become a growing issue in America.

In the 2010s, after anti-Semitism’s immense exponential growth, both in the amounts of anti-Semitic crimes and threats, as well as in anti-Semitic sentiment, I explained how all signs were pointing to the next Holocaust emerging in America.

At the turn of the decade, after a string of anti-Semitic attacks in New York and New Jersey in a relatively short time period, Jewish lawmakers started acknowledging how a “slow-rolling pogrom” was taking place in New York.

Until a sharp sudden rise in anti-Semitic attacks within a relatively close radius took place, I saw little response to this message from the Jewish people. It is written about us, that we are a stiff-necked people, i.e., we have a tough skin that makes it very hard to penetrate such awareness into our perception.

In any case, in order to prevent a future dystopian scenario for the Jewish people in the United States, as well as elsewhere, the message is the same for all Jews: we need to unite, according to the tenet “love your friend as yourself,” in order to become “a light unto the nations,” i.e., a conduit that passes the positive unifying force dwelling in nature to the world. If the message doesn’t become accepted through education, explanation and promotion, then anti-Semitic blows and suffering will rise, “softening our stiff necks,” undesirably increasing our ability to absorb such a message.

That is the state we first reached some 3,800 years ago in ancient Babylon, under Abraham’s guidance, which granted us the name, “the people of Israel” (“Israel” from the words, “Yashar Kel,” which means “straight to God” [“God” being the same as “Nature” according to Kabbalah, i.e., a positive force that connects all elements of reality]). Also, according to the same unifying tendency, we were later named “Jews,” from the word for “unity” (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

Today, we are reaching new global proportions of anti-Semitism that the world has never seen, since today’s world is more globally-integrated than ever before. Due to anti-Semitism emerging as a natural phenomenon in non-Jews, toward a subconscious expectation for the Jews to pioneer a process toward more positive human connection, then we can expect a future where everyone other than a few Jews will be anti-Semitic.

Therefore, we Jews first and foremost need to show everyone how unity above the growing hostile divisions in society is not only a possibility, but that there is a method of connection to guide our every step of the way. By implementing such a method on ourselves, we send positive unifying ripples throughout humanity’s consciousness, and invite an opposite attitude from anti-Semitism upon ourselves in return. In other words, by witnessing increasing positive connection, and subsequent rises in happiness, support and confidence in society at large, the general attitude toward a unified Jewish people would become favorable and encouraging.

However, if the Jewish people will continue rejecting, ignoring or remaining unaware of the message of the need to unite, then instead of seeing unity form in society’s mainstream, we can expect unity to form more and more in society’s fringes, i.e., as Nazi and fascist unity. Such unity is dangerous, since it is built on uniting around the hatred of the other, and it becomes the infrastructure that can lead to the manifestation of horrific events, as exemplified by the Holocaust.

Therefore, I hope that Jews in general, and especially American Jews, will start noticing that the ball is in our court, and that we need to play the game well: to prioritize our unity in order to spread unity onward. If we do so, we will experience a better general state in America and around the world. However, if we fail to realize what the wisdom of Kabbalah is saying on this pressing issue, then the state will become much worse.

Meaning Of Life, Part 5

Laitman_115Push to the Revelation of the Purpose of Creation

Question: Is the meaning of life from the point of view of Kabbalah in the revelation of the Creator within a person precisely when one exists in this world, in this body, that is, when one leads an ordinary human life?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it felt like a great pleasure? After all, it is written in all Kabbalistic sources that the purpose of creation is in bringing pleasure to the created beings.

Answer: Bringing pleasure through what? It is through the revelation of the Creator.

Question: So, does it mean that the Creator, nature, initially develops us so that we would advance from the shallow basic pleasures to social pleasures?

Answer: Yet nevertheless, moving from small pleasures to bigger ones, a person goes through suffering.

Question: Is it suffering that becomes a push toward the revelation of the purpose of creation?

Answer: Yes. The feeling of lack, that I need to reveal more, to understand more, and to feel more drives us forward.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/14/19

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Freedom Of Choice, Part 10

laitman_528.04Increase the Influence of Light

Question: When many people have freedom of will is it difficult or impossible to predict their future?

Answer: I would not say that many people have freedom of will. They have a chance, but they do not use it.

In order to understand how to they must study Kabbalah. They have to be in the group and cause a special energy and force to move in a certain direction under its influence. They don’t have that.

Question: Does a person who is engaged in studying Kabbalah evoke a certain type of influence from nature?

Answer: He increases the influence of nature. And so, nature leads us forward, constantly influencing us. But if we are in a group, then it increases its impact and thereby accelerates our internal development.

Question: What should we come to?

Answer: In our internal state, we must come to similarity to the Creator, to the property of bestowal and love. Nature leads us to this. But so far humanity advances through blows and suffering. If you move forward yourself, then you turn these sufferings into goodness and love.

Question: Is the property of bestowal and love manifested as unity between people?

Answer: It is from unity that we get the strength that develops us in a good way.

Remark: It turns out that nature, with all kinds of suffering, makes us somehow unite and become similar to the Creator.

My Comment: But if we don’t want to suffer and start studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, we begin to understand where nature should lead us. We see that we are not close to the Creator. This is what we feel as sufferings, although in fact they do not exist.

Then we can strive for unification, call upon ourselves the highest reforming light, which will develop us faster than anything else.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/4/19

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 1/23/20

Lesson Preparation

[media 1] [media 2]

Lesson on the Topic Bestow Contentment to the Creator” 

[media 3] [media 4]

Selected Highlights

[media 5] [media 6]