Audio Version Of The Blog – 5/28/20
Posted on May 28th, 2020
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Question: The essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the unity of desires, intentions, thoughts, and souls. What is the main tool that gives the effect of spiritual glue between them? What connects them?
Answer: They are connected by our desire, when we in the ten want to be together so much that we feel a mutual yearning, interaction, and mutual thoughts, that is, the manifestation of a completely new feeling of reciprocity that no one had before.
It is also not yet spiritual, but it is already the manifestation of a single field that the Creator blesses. And then we will connect more and more closely until in mind, in heart, and in intention, we begin to feel how we want to help each other, to manifest within each other, and to connect with each other.
Then, by establishing this network of connection, we will feel that the Creator is there, as if we caught Him in this network like a huge dolphin.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 3/1/20
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 5/28/20
Today we’re celebrating the giving of the Torah. According to tradition, on this day, some 3,400 years ago, the people of Israel stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai and received the Torah. Incidentally, it is written that when Moses came down from the mountain with the Torah in his hands, it was written on two tablets. Afterwards, the Torah was written on parchment, then on paper, and finally on tablets again, so in that sense, we went full circle.
However, what’s really important is what the Torah is and why it was given. It is written that the Creator said, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” In other words, the Torah is something that corrects, improves. The word “Torah” comes from the word Ohr, which is Hebrew for “light,” meaning a force, energy that changes our inclination from evil, self-centered, to good, namely giving. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, every other explanation of the meaning of the Torah is a myth.
Another myth concerns the intended recipients of the Torah. The people of Israel who came out of Egypt and received the Torah had descended from Abraham’s initial group. Abraham was not a Jew. In his days, there was no Jewish people. Abraham was Babylonian, and he found a way to mend the evil inclination that was spreading across his country, and offered his ideas to anyone who’d listen. The people who liked his ideas and united around him later became known as the people of Israel. When the people of Israel received the light, the correcting force called “Torah,” they were merely following Abraham’s legacy of correcting the ego, the evil inclination.
Therefore, the Torah is not for the Jews; it’s for everyone, since everyone is egoistic, and everyone needs a force that will correct us, since we clearly can’t correct ourselves. And the final myth for this post concerns the way to receive the Torah—the correcting force. According to Kabbalah, receiving the force has nothing to do with Judaism, and everything to do with unity. To receive the Torah, Israel had to unite “as one man with one heart.” Only after they did this, they received the force of correction for their egos, and once they united, they became the Israeli nation. So anyone who truly wishes to unite with all the people, to bring them all into the heart, will receive that correcting force, and that will be his or her reception of the Torah.
Happy Matan Torah to everyone.
Comment: The whole world has a problem with Hollywood. For several months now the industry has been shut down, movie-theaters are vacant, all the money that has been invested is frozen or lost. So, all the superheroes are afraid of this 60-micron virus.
600 shows that were supposed to be produced are now all being put on hold. The Oscars ceremony has been postponed.
What is more, Hollywood is facing a dilemma with respect to script writing: “Our manner of story-telling will forever change. Everything prior to the pandemic will seem outdated.”
My Reply: Naturally. People all over the world have changed a lot.
Comment: People used to believe the Hollywood stories, all these soap operas, and TV shows. And suddenly, such a disaster hits that aims them to seek the truth, the essence, something which is quite different.
My Reply: We have entered a new world. We are already different.
Question: So, what would we like to see? I am interested as a producer. What screen play would appeal to us? What would the world want to see? How will it change Hollywood?
Answer: I have never written any scripts.
Comment: But you are a great playwright, seriously!
My Reply: But those are not my ideas! I take them from the sources.
Comment: We are living the script of the Last Generation.
My Reply: Yes. That screenplay is now being implemented. Schwarzenegger can fight for the truth here too. It is a fight against egoism, which is holding us all by the throat, not allowing us to breathe.
And until we grab this scrawny old woman by the hand and rip her throat, nothing will change. She will keep pressuring us all the time, again and again.
Humanity will have to do it.
Comment: So, you believe that such a hero will appear?
My Reply: There must be a hero. We need a hero.
The hero is the Creator. But we need that hero to be someone we can love, hate, agree or disagree with, be disillusioned with, only to later realize that it was all Him! HIM!
Question: But do you feel that this hero is moving toward the Creator? Do you really think that the time of such a hero is approaching?
Answer: We are already in it. I am completely serious. We do not feel this yet because, as usual, we only see things in retrospect. But we are already in it, absolutely! Moreover, it is very clear externally and internally. The first wave of the coronavirus has already passed and all we see now are the remains of it. This wave has passed and we are already thinking and feeling differently; everything is different.
The virus passes through us as we cope with our own sickness. We see the world differently; we do not realize it yet but the awareness of how much we have changed and how differently we view everything now will come. Thus, the first wave has already passed.
Question: Do you think that the time of reveling in those “soap operas” with fights and violence in the movies is gradually passing?
Answer: You can even see this in the youth that was still interested in it a mere half-a-year ago. You can see if they are still interested in it today. I am confident that they no longer are. And the pre-teens that are growing up will have no interest in it. It would seem to them as an antiquated Hollywood of the last century.
Question: You think they will be looking for something beyond this fighting, this violence?
Answer: They will be looking for a greater action. And the greater action is already inside. It is not in fighting, not in throwing someone off the 20th floor and he grabs the landing gear of an airplane and flies off. The need will be beyond the mechanical action, beyond the imagery or the framework of this world. It will be internal.
Question: Internal scrutiny?
Answer: Yes. Or it could be a war like the coronavirus is fighting against us. And so, our hero gets accustomed to it and travels inside the human body, inside the human society, fighting this virus that wants to smite humanity. And our hero is against it.
And then he perhaps begins to realize that he should not be fighting against it because everything that the virus does is good.
It was only I who thought that it needed to be destroyed. No! We must help the virus destroy human egoism. It only aims to destroy the ego and not to harm humanity. On the contrary, it is saving humanity.
Comment: So, man realizes the positive mission of this virus, which is aimed against human egoism. And if we renounce it…
Answer: One suddenly realizes that if not for this virus, we would be headed toward the destruction of our planet. Had the virus not come to us now, we would have surely destroyed it in the very near future.
It actually sounds like a great title: “And Suddenly, Came a Virus.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 4/27/20
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Medium published my new article “Fake News for a Fake World”
The director of the World Health Organization said about COVID-19: “Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus.” Indeed, if you’re looking for truth in today’s world, then the truth is that everybody’s lying. Every media outlet warps and manipulates the news according to the agenda of its owner.
We can keep avoiding the sincere soul searching that we need to do and go down the path we have been on for decades, but evidently, it won’t lead us anywhere good.
In the past, when newspapers and television received their funding from subscribers, from people buying actual copies of newspapers, the press was obliged to provide the readers or the viewers with true stories. Today, when the media is owned by media moguls and depends on advertisers for its existence, it is indebted only to them, and honest reporting has become obsolete. The good news, if you can call it that, is that today everyone already knows that everyone is lying.
We still consume news from the media, since there is no other source of news, but at least it’s with a grain of salt. And speaking of salt, the media today is like the food we eat: big, shiny, and flawless in appearance. But inside, the food is pumped with hormones, steroids, and antibiotics. We all know it, and we all eat it. What else can we do?
Here we need to be honest with ourselves. It’s true that the media is corrupt, but this hasn’t been news for a long time now. So we should ask, Where did the journalists come from? Where did they grow up? Where were they educated? Where did they learn to distort and manipulate? They learned it in the same place where we grew up, where we were educated, where we learned to manipulate one another. The media are not more corrupt than the environment that bred them, which is all of us. They are made in our own image.
To get truthful news, it’s not enough to condemn them; they cannot be better than the public that engendered them. Instead, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror, admit that the people we patronize with our self-righteousness actually do reflect who we are, and ask ourselves if this is the society we want to live in.
If we do, then there is nothing to complain about. But if we don’t, there is a lot we can do. We can start by learning how we are all connected to each other. Just as one person with the coronavirus can infect dozens of people, if not more, so can our actions and even our thoughts. When ill-will toward each other reins high, people will do bad things to one another, reflecting what they feel inside. But when they feel connected to their communities and countries, when they care about their neighbors, they will not harm them. So the root of the problem that creates bad press is that we ourselves are bad to one another. If we are bad to one another, can we complain that someone else is bad to us?
We are reversing JFK’s motto, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” and complain when it doesn’t work. In principle, we all agree with JFK, but we want everyone else to go first. With this attitude, we will die before anyone does something.
The present is the way it is because we have avoided dealing with ourselves, with how we relate to each other, and with what kind of society we are fostering. We can keep avoiding the sincere soul searching that we need to do and go down the path we have been on for decades, but evidently, it won’t lead us anywhere good.
Alternatively, we can decide that we have to finally get off our couches and start working for each other. It doesn’t require radical changes; we don’t need to donate our savings, if we have any, and we don’t have to sacrifice anything. We only need to look inside ourselves and observe how we relate to one another, because this is where we are really sick. This is the virus we are giving to each other morning, noon, and night. If we want to become different to each other, we will, provided we want it together. This is the idea we need to promote, that together we can build a caring society, whose people are responsible for one another. If we adopt that tiny shift in our mentality, we will see a different world. Together, we can move mountains.
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Medium published my new article “What Coronaphobia Tells Us about Human Nature”
Fear kills. As COVID-19 continues spreading and the appalling death toll in America and the world rises, the fear of the unknown is causing extreme anxiety — “coronaphobia.” US physicians are worried about additional deaths occurring as a large number of patients with life-threatening conditions have stopped seeking treatment at hospitals because they are afraid of contagion. There is much more to this new phenomenon than it seems. It reflects a fundamental change in human nature, a new perception of social interaction that the pandemic has triggered. We need to become more aware of this change in order to adjust to it properly.
Now is the time to realize that we are one interconnected and interdependent humanity and to strive to preserve the sense of integrality that the current crisis has taught us.
Our lifestyles and habits have changed dramatically, perhaps forever, as a consequence of the coronavirus. Those with obsessive compulsive disorder now see similar behaviors on a widespread level as people avoid personal contact, handshakes, touching stuff that is not theirs, and constantly wash their hands to prevent contracting the disease. Many are anxious to leave home and expose themselves to the non-sterile outside world unless they have no choice and are equipped with masks and all the necessary protective gear.
What manifests on the surface as an irrational fear of the illness is symptomatic of a shift in human perception in life priorities at a deeper level. Without question, treating the illness should not be delayed or avoided out of fear, but this recent human tendency to turn inward arises for a reason.
This huge world upheaval has opened up before our eyes. The epidemic has slowed our pace, forced us to stop and think twice about the relevance of our endless quest for pleasures. We have realized that the obsessive pursuit of indulgence at all cost is our real trap, since as soon as a desire is fulfilled, a new and bigger desire arises. Thus, we have constantly fallen into the same vicious cycle of emptiness and lack of meaning in our lives.
In our new reality, sitting at home has started to become a habit, a second nature. What was first perceived as being in prison, trapped in a stressful set-up, suddenly feels comfortable and safe. Of course, it is impossible to generalize and say everyone feels this way or relates to it. Nor is there an interest in pushing anyone in that direction, but the trend does indicate that a transformation in the way we relate to and live our lives has occurred.
Occupations have also changed compared to previous generations. We are rapidly moving our jobs into the virtual space — an easy way to connect with people without physical and geographic boundaries. Even though we are still used to physical contact, we are increasingly realizing that the benefits of working from home pay off in many ways — more quality time with the family, fewer long and tiring commutes, and financial savings in lower office overhead costs.
However, the stage we are now in is not our final destination. The virtual space is only a way station in the transition from existence in the physical world to a more inner, introspective world. The sooner we begin to feel ourselves as an integral part of a global virtual space, the deeper our internal connection will be. That kind of connection refers to the unity of the hearts which is not measured by the number of physical interactions we have in the corporeal world.
In a nutshell, the virtual reality the pandemic has moved us toward is the preparation for the establishment of a more internal, integral society, an integral connection. In this new world, we will need to learn to connect above our differences, and create meaningful connections alongside engaging in business and livelihood activities.
This is the stage that the human race needs to implement now. We need to grasp the elements and means of this new reality and learn to use them to foster better human relations. Now is the time to realize that we are one interconnected and interdependent humanity and to strive to preserve the sense of integrality that the current crisis has taught us.
Our only requirement is to strengthen our inner connection to create an integral society between us that is based on the principle of “love covers all crimes,” as our sages wrote. Such an environment will dispel all phobias, uncertainty and anxiety about the future.
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Tikkun Olam and the Falsehood of Social Justice”
Always around the holiday of Shavuot (aka Feast of Weeks), we Jews discuss the concept of Tikkun Olam (lit. “correction of the world”). The prevailing understanding of Tikkun Olam is that the term speaks of the obligation of Jews to pursue social justice, lead an ethical life, and support equal rights to the underprivileged and minorities. These are all worthy goals, and the right for equality is a given for every human being. Nevertheless, placing the correction of the world on these values guarantees that the world will never be corrected, and below I will explain why.
At the foot of Mt. Sinai, when the Jews received the Torah—the code of law by which they lived—they received it only because they had met the precondition to be, even if only for that movement, “as one man with one heart.” That is, for one moment, they were in such absolute love for one another that they became as one person. Subsequently, they received their code of law which was meant to help them maintain that state of mutual love. This is why Rabbi Akiva, whose disciples gave us the texts that form the basis of our nation, taught that the overall rule of the Torah is that one sentence, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Immediately after Israel received the Torah, they were tasked with passing on what they had achieved. In other words, they became a nation in order to be “a light unto nations,” spreading unity and mutual love to the rest of the nations.
But two thousand years ago, we fell into such depths of mutual hatred that we did not even need a reason to hate one another. This unfounded hatred brought upon us not only the destruction of the Temple and the loss of sovereignty, but also the permanent loathing and contempt of the nations. That loathing, whose root is our unfounded loathing for our brothers, brought upon us countless cataclysms since then, the most catastrophic of which is, of course, the Holocaust.
Nevertheless, we do not learn. We do everything to avoid loving one another, and turn instead to surrogates such as social justice and morals. Yet, as we can see, there is no social justice and there is no moral anywhere. Values can’t replace mutual love, which is what the nations truly want from us: to shine for them the light of unity.
If we loved each other, we would not need to promote social justice, since lovers do not behave unjustly to each other. We would not need to speak of morals since lovers do not behave immorally toward their loved ones. Ethics would not be an issue since there are no such things as exploitation or mistreatment among people who genuinely care for one another.
A mother does not need moral codes when she tends to her baby. Her love directs her and she always works with her child’s best interest in mind. Where you find laws, you won’t find love.
And as if we haven’t suffered enough, we still don’t want to love each other. We gladly bond with other faiths and practices, but when it comes to loving people of our own nation, we do not even speak of social justice, let alone love.
In relating so disparagingly toward our coreligionists, we shun the concept of being a light unto nations. We were, are, and always will be at the center of the world’s attention. Subconsciously, people are and always will expect us to project the light of brotherly love to the nations. But what we project is mutual derision and hate. When that is the case, no nation will love us, however hard we try to win its favor. Until we do our duty and cultivate love among ourselves, we will not fulfill the task for which we were given nationhood on the first Shavuot, at the foot of Mt. Sinai. And therefore, the nations will not love us.
So this year, I propose that we focus less on being morally just and ethical, and more, much more, on loving one another. Let’s dare, for once, to rise above our differences, avoid judging and patronizing, condemning and ridiculing. Instead, let’s stay who we are and unite above it. Let’s at least think about it. After all, Rabbi Akiva did not leave us a legacy of ethics, but a legacy of love, so let’s try to do what this teacher of our nation taught, and see what happens.
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My article in Newsmax: “Conspiracy Theories, Chips and Other ‘Explanations’”
Unusual situations produce unusual explanations. This is very true of the COVID-19 crisis. This is why there probably hasn’t been a crisis in recent memory that produced more fake news, conspiracy theories and other scares that no one knows who spread them and whether they are true or false.
But whether or not the coronavirus was made in a lab in Wuhan, China and whether or not it is meant to scare us into agreeing to implant in us a chip that will monitor our every move, those theories all have one major flaw: They ignore the root cause of the virus. In the end, it does not matter who created the virus or for what purpose. What matters is that it is here and it is changing the very fabric of human society. This is something that no human intended to achieve and no human can control.
The coronavirus is indeed exposing something, something that my teachers call “the recognition of evil,” the evil in human nature. The virus shut down all of our systems and sent us to do some thinking. While we were at home, nature thrived and animals began to roam freely where they had not roamed in decades, demonstrating how injurious we have been toward nature.
While we were at home, for fear of contracting the virus or infecting our more vulnerable loved ones, brash young demonstrators protested the lockdown by rallying together and carrying signs that said “Cuomo protects criminals” and “Cuomovirus the Real Threat in New York State.”
And while the common folk are begging for federal benefits to keep their families and businesses afloat, the tycoons are making hundreds of billions of dollars at everyone else’s expense. Even the richer hospitals got twice as much government aid as the poorer hospitals. How does one justify this? If this is not recognition of evil, I don’t know what is.
There is a good reason that I point out all those examples of human ugliness. The coronavirus did not create them; it only placed a mirror before our eyes so we could see who we are, how we treat one another and how alienated we are from each other. And if this is how we treat each other, it is no wonder that this is also how we treat nature. Is this what we want to go back to? Is this what we want to reopen? After all, this is what we locked down, so when we reopen, this is what will come out.
We do need to live, but we need to do it right. By “right,” I mean that we need to open only businesses that are truly essential and not, as one protestor’s sign said, “All Jobs Are Essential.” Essential to whom? To those who want to manipulate us into buying what we don’t need? Not every business is essential, and not all jobs are essential.
Rather, all people are essential. People whose businesses contribute real value to society, such as food, clothing, health care, education, construction and so forth, should be open and stay open. The rest of us should transition to a whole new field of expertise: human education.
By human education, I mean learning how to be human, namely humane toward each other. We should learn that we are all dependent on each other, because clearly, at the moment we are unaware of it. We should learn that when we promote values such as mutual consideration, mutual care and concern and accountability toward our communities and cities, we are the first to benefit from this. If we want to have a future, we need to acknowledge that the quality of our future depends on the quality of the society we live in. And if we don’t build a good, supportive society for ourselves, who will?
Activism is great, as long as it is directed toward uniting society around improving everyone’s life and not toward promoting the interests of various pressure groups. In order to solve the problems of society, all factions and elements of society must partake in the process, share their needs and the society (or its representatives) should decide together on the priorities in allocating resources and efforts to solve them.
In today’s interdependent society, if one faction remains dissatisfied, it will inevitably bring down the whole society. If we do not understand this now, we will understand it after the second or third wave of the virus. So why not do it now, a million victims earlier?
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Masach (screen) represents the anti-egoistic force that a person gains with the help of the upper light.
A person, as if, puts on a screen on his desire and then can work with it in the opposite direction and act kindly toward others and the Creator. He is then able to work for bestowal without receiving any pleasure for his own sake.
Question: What is the problem with receiving for your own sake?
Answer: By this you separate from the Creator, you stop feeling the upper world and limit yourself only to the sensation of our world.
Remark: But this is how the Creator created us.
My Response: He created us such that from this state we would rise to Him, return to the state of merging with Him.
Question: Why was this even hidden? Why haven’t the sages taught this for the past thousand years?
Answer: In order to create the illusion of freewill in a person.
Remark: But if I were taught this at school, I would know that I do not have freedom of choice.
My Response: You cannot accept these things in your childhood and have them exist in you automatically. You must desire them yourself.
There were generations when people were taught this from a young age and they had no problems. But these were the first generations. And now, with our enormous selfishness, we must begin our journey long before the Machsom, before the manifestation of the Creator, before we understand where we are and whom we are dealing with. This is a part of our correction.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/17/19
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Question: They are always conducting experiments in Sweden. Lately, they have decided to settle pensioners with immigrants. Those who came up with the idea believe that it will help elderly people cope with the feeling of loneliness and, at the same time, it will help immigrants integrate in the country and in the new culture. What do you think about this plan?
Answer: I think it is a good plan for the mutual destruction of both of them.
Question: Does this mean that you believe it is impossible to integrate the two groups?
Answer: It is impossible to integrate the two groups. Even people who share the same religion, the same values in life, and the same culture that stem from the same nation, people who understand each other without words, cannot live in peace with each other. Here, on the other hand, they are trying to do something that is totally contradictory, as if from another planet. How will they live together!? What for?
Question: Do you believe that the retirees will feel lonelier and the immigrants will be even more distant?
Answer: The pensioners will suffer! Both groups will turn into wild beasts. In nature, there is the law of equivalence of form. Mutual closeness is based on resemblance. This means that we get closer to someone to the extent that we resemble him, and we draw away to the extent that we differ. This is the law in simple free space. If you begin to bring people who are different from each other together, shock waves and imbalance will begin to appear between them until they reach an actual explosion. So why do that? The people who do that do not have any idea what they are dealing with. It will be impossible to erase the shock with money or whiskey.
Question: Do you think that not even psychology will work here?
Answer: No. It will take several generations before these groups of people begin to resemble each other. This means that they will bring about the divisiveness of society and other horrible outcomes. Who would let that happen?! Would I send my relatives to live in such conditions?! Near immigrants?!
The immigrants are not to blame for any of this either. They have their own values and their own attitudes toward life; a different perspective and a different mentality. They do not understand Northern Europeans. At best, they come from Southern Europe, Africa, or Asia.
This is horrible. Who has come up with such an idea?! It shows a total lack of understanding of the laws of nature.
Comment: Now I understand that this goal will not be achieved.
My Response: Not only will it not be achieved, it will come to states in which the police will have to patrol everywhere there.
Question: There is a problem with lonely people in Sweden, especially retirees. What would you do if you had all of the options at your disposal, in order to mitigate the situation a little so they would not be lonely?
Answer: The Swedes should engage with other Swedes, that is all! They should take the younger generation or the unemployed, teach them, and then employ them as social workers.
Question: And what would you do with the immigrants? This is also a problem in Sweden. How should they integrate them into the society?
Answer: They need to put them in intensive, serious study frameworks from morning till evening, for the whole day, study frameworks for the kids, for teens, and for adults. A very large number of people are needed for that.
Question: So the problem will not simply be resolved with time?
Answer: No, it will not be resolved. There will be new problems such as street gangs, drug abuse, and everything else we see in such situations. It is all due only to the lack of the right approach.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 1/13/20
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