My new article on Linkedin “The Satire of Antisemitism”

On Twitter and Facebook alone, a staggering 1.7 million antisemitic posts were made this year, said U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism, Elan Carr. That is no laughing matter. But what if we fight hate with satire like comedians try to do? Could that be an effective way to tackle conspiracy theories against Jews? I think, “Yes.” Regardless of whether it is done in a straightforward fashion or from the flip side, what matters most is to awaken the question of why the endless Jew-hatred exists, as an important step to solving the problem for good.

Only the people of Israel can make a difference in the world because they are the people who received the method of connection, the wisdom of Kabbalah, which describes the means for drawing the unique force in nature capable of neutralizing any disruption and negativity in reality. That force that balances hatred is the power of love created through Jewish unity. When Jews are united and become an example to follow, they will arise as the “light unto the nations,” lighting up the path to a positive future for humanity. That will be the day when fairness, equality, and mutual understanding will have the last laugh.

The coronavirus comes from “a place called Wuhan, which is in Israel” joked Jewish comedian Sasha Baron Cohen on a popular US television show, and was reported in some media outlets. People certainly don’t take him seriously and it is clear that his intention isn’t to stir up provocation, but to use sarcasm as an effective way to disparage antisemitism. Why could this be a great strategy? Because we need a creative approach to address the increasing animosity against Jews around the world. It might help us to highlight this phenomenon bluntly and vociferously on social media where antisemitism crops up and spreads like a virus.

The world’s attention is currently focused on the other epidemic, Covid-19, which has upstaged Jew hatred slightly but not erased it from the playbill, as statistics show. As soon as the plague weakens, the voices of our enemies will intensify again, blaming Jews for the pandemic and other libels, as antisemites so openly do at every first opportunity and through any means at their disposal.

However, we waste our time trying to combat the haters head-on or by struggling to remove unwanted content. These actions will not help, nor do we have the immense power and resources it would take to eradicate the problem. As soon as the measures to eliminate antisemitic posts are implemented in one place, they rapidly reproduce like weeds in a field. Therefore, the only strategy that will bear fruit is to learn how to take the negativity thrown our way and contrast it with all the goodness expected from the Jewish people.

In fact, let’s take a step back and think about this clearly for a moment. When antisemites blame Jews for all the calamities in the world, they are actually pointing to Jews as the only force capable of causing change in the world, as the only people who have the power to solve any crisis humanity faces but who are failing to fulfill this goal.

That is a true statement—they are absolutely right. Only the people of Israel can make a difference in the world because they are the people who received the method of connection, the wisdom of Kabbalah, which describes the means for drawing the unique force in nature capable of neutralizing any disruption and negativity in reality. That force that balances hatred is the power of love created through Jewish unity. When Jews are united and become an example to follow, they will arise as the “light unto the nations,” lighting up the path to a positive future for humanity. That will be the day when fairness, equality, and mutual understanding will have the last laugh.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the purpose of life?“

The purpose of life is to attain the highest and most exalted state that nature prepared for us: to ascend above our inborn egoistic selves and gain a clear understanding, perception and sensation of why we—and nature on all of its levels, inanimate, vegetative, animate and human—exist.

Moreover, the purpose of life cannot be forced upon or shown to anyone, similarly to how we cannot prove mathematical laws to cats. Instead, every person needs to discover the purpose of life for themselves: to elevate themselves in perception and sensation until they gain a complete vision and feeling of reality.

The ascension above our inborn egoistic nature to the discovery of nature’s wholeness is the fullest meaning of becoming a human being. In Hebrew, the word for “human” is “Adam,” which stems from the phrase, “Adameh le Elyon” (“similar to the most high”), which means that if we rise above our narrow egoistic perception and attain a whole perception of reality, we fulfill our role of becoming “human” in the fullest sense of the term.

In principle, there are two forces in nature: reception (egoism, negative) and bestowal (altruism, positive). We are born and raised solely on the force of reception, which is expressed in us as egoism: the desire to enjoy at the expense of anything or anyone outside of oneself.

Our egoism develops and grows over many generations, from a small desire to enjoy that demands nothing more than its basic survival needs—food, sex, family and shelter—to a bigger ego that requires fulfillment from myriad social connections—money, wealth, honor, respect, fame, control, power and knowledge. In our era, we have reached a uniquely significant transition point where we bear witness to our egoistic development reaching a dead end, i.e., feeling it increasingly hard to feel fulfilled from egoistic pursuits, which also gives rise to a plethora of negative attitudes in society—people taking out their dissatisfaction on each other more and more, leading to increasing polarization and hatred throughout society.

Today’s overblown egoism thus points the way to the need for us to draw an opposite, positive and altruistic force in order for us create balanced relations among each other and with nature.

Both our inborn egoism as well as the positive altruistic force stem from nature, and the purpose of life is that we apply ourselves to attract nature’s positive altruistic force above our egoistic one, in order that we live in balance and harmony with nature.

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Lessons in the Form of a Round Table

Question: What is the main difficulty in organizing lessons in the form of a round table? What should we pay attention to?

Answer: It is very difficult to make a round table from a lesson because a lesson requires a teacher. If the teacher excludes himself from this circle and is present as an outside moderator, then it is another matter.

Question: In what do you see the difficulty in organizing such a round table?

Answer: The difficulty is in the students themselves, whether they are ready for this, whether they understand the importance of doing exercises in this way.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/9/20

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New Life 475 – Personal Interests Vs. National Interests
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

A true leader needs to be above his ego, devoted to the people, and detached from any personal interest. This is someone who is ready to leave his post and clean the streets if that is what is needed for the good of the people. Leadership is a reflection of the public and can only be corrected from the bottom up since any existing system shreds and devours those who enter it. We will get to know evil out of the dark, corrupt ego and move in the direction of connection. Once a new spirit is created, it will be projected onto the leadership. To be Israel is to love thy friend as thyself and discover the upper force between us.
From KabTV’s “New Life 475 – Personal Interests Vs. National Interests,” 12/16/14

Video: Play Now | Download

Audio: Play Now | Download

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Question: How can we combine collective management with vertical management? To what extent should the boss or leader take the opinion of the people into account?  Should this be done  only when he or she does not have enough information to make a decision?

Answer: We take into account the opinion of the people only when it is necessary to make common actions to solve problems, but nothing more.

Question: So there should be a hierarchy in management?

Answer: Management must be vertical. And a collective must be a collective. A manager must take care about the understanding of the task, the goal to be reached, the solvability of this task, its sequence. For all this should be agreed between everyone, accepted, approved, and everyone should be inspired by the implementation of the task.

Question: In this process, do we need to take into account the opinion of every person? Even in an organization employing several hundred people, not to mention the state?

Answer: You can hold a meeting, maybe even more than one, in order to make the need and sequence of actions clear to everyone.

Question: So it is important for a leader or a manager to hear the opinions of the people, but they have to make decisions by themselves?

Answer: Yes, they listen to the opinions of the people, and it is good for the subordinates to know where everything should lead. There is always room for some mistakes, an opportunity to fix or improve something, and the subordinates themselves will prompt their managers.

Remark: This is all about solving easy tasks. And if you need to solve a serious problem where there is a lot of confidential information and the people do not have this information, then it is quite difficult to make a decision.

My Comment: Then the making of the decision is split into certain segments. At the same time, we must try to do so that a team is involved in their implementation.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/11/20

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Question: The process of perception of new information goes through stages. The first stage is selective, a way of capturing information, then there is recognition based on some associations, followed by interpretation, assessment of the significance of the information, its understanding. And, finally, is the retention of information. Do you agree with this?

Answer: More or less. But all this is very difficult for a person. Let’s say I’m starting to get to know something and I have to check myself against this long list to find out how much am I in this flow of information or in its absorption within myself. This is almost impossible.

Remark: Scientists say that it is important to link new material to clear examples. Otherwise, the material will not be absorbed. For example, it is useless to tell a person about mutual guarantee unless we provide some examples.

The sages knew about this a thousand years ago and wrote the study materials (in the sources) in the form of stories. So when you talk about mutual guarantee, imagine someone drilling a hole in a boat, it all becomes very clear.

My Comment: Sure. In principle this remains, only a lot of data and conditions are added.

Question: I think that it would be a good idea to give various examples in our explanations. For example, when you say: “You must become as round as nature or reflect its laws,” what can I imagine?

For me, nature is forests, groves, the cosmos. What examples could you give when you say that man must reflect the laws of nature?

Answer: One should simply study what nature really is, its laws, what is it trying to tell us. One must acquire some new skills, knowledge, and expand one’s perception.

Question: You often say that the solution to any problem is in uniting humanity. And here the question arises: What picture should I imagine? What does uniting mean? Everyone understands this in their own way.

Answer: Unity is a connection between several completely different beings, concepts, or knowledge when they have a common platform.

The basis for all objects and phenomena lies in desires. And if the desires are directed at unification, then people are looking for some kind of foundation or platform. This usually leads to the fact that they outline for themselves the next, more elevated state and strive for it, and help each other.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 7/24/20

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Question: You often say that women can manage better than men. Why? What is your claim based on?

Answer: A woman, unlike a man, can manage many jobs. Let a man do a general cleaning of the apartment, he will not cope with it in a month. Give it to a woman; everything will be perfectly done in one day. That is, a woman is adapted to solve small but varied tasks.

Question: How do female leaders differ from male leaders?

Answer: I do not think that they are in any way different from each other at all because this is no longer a woman and a man, but a person who lives by an idea and has nothing to do with gender differences.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/11/20

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Question: What should be the basic principle of a person’s relationship with their family?

Answer: The family, according to Kabbalah, is a person’s environment, which allows him to exist in our world as correctly, normally, and comfortably as possible.

Question: For example, I love my children and my wife so I do not need to make much effort to treat them responsibly and altruistically. Can we say that nature gives us such an example so that we can later treat other people in the same way?

Answer: No. We cannot determine our attitude toward others without taking into account their attitude toward us. Therefore, if we are talking about building relationships within a family, then we must take care of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels in order to provide our household with these levels in the necessary, rational form.

Question: But why is it created by nature that a person should have some kind of small cell close to him?

Answer: Everything comes from the earth, from the inanimate level, followed by the vegetative, and then the animate level. In order to maintain and develop these levels in us, we must continue to exist in them, despite the fact that we are already, perhaps, at a higher level.

Therefore, any great Kabbalist still has a family, and he takes care of it to some extent. He satisfies the basic desires of his loved ones, although, in principle, his spiritual essence, his spiritual ties with the upper system in which he already resides, have nothing to do with communications within his family.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 7/30/20

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic of “Global Tendencies”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1, Item 1″

Selected Highlights

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We need the help of the upper force that is concealed in nature. This force is the source of life. It created all the particles of creation and develops them until they attain a sensation of life. We need this force, which unites the plus and minus on all degrees, to help us as well at our degree.

When we become as one man with one heart, there won’t be any difference between us, but only one great desire. No diseases or viruses will remain. The virus will actually turn out healthy because it has brought us to this state, to a universal embrace.

We are like charged particles in a spiritual field, which can’t come closer or farther arbitrarily, but always maintain equilibrium between them. The distance will change when the attitude changes. This will allow us to correct ourselves quickly and become as one man with one heart

In spirituality, closeness is determined by the law of equivalence of form. By acquiring a new perception of reality, I can come closer to you or move farther away, depending on how I think of you: good or bad. If I wish you well, then I can come closer.

Realization of #evil is when I see how badly I treat people and I have to correct my attitude. This will become the only effective remedy against the #coronavirus.

The #coronavirus expresses our internal attitude to each other in external parameters: I hate some people “6 feet” big, and I hate others “20 feet.” The #quarantine distance reflects the hatred that exists between us. I am not allowed to come close to someone if I have a bad attitude to them.
From Twitter, 10/24/20

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