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My Thoughts On Twitter 12/10/20

Dr Michael Laitman Twitter

The Creator performs the breakage on His own—and we ask Him for connection. In all of these actions we feel the Creator, understand what He wants to say through an encoded program. We feel how through the exits and entries of the light, the Creator teaches us how to approach Him, closer and closer.

The most important thing is to always strive for unity, to preserve unity. From above we are being divided, but we unite. Therein lies our reciprocal work with the Creator. He tears us apart—and we connect. He tears us apart again—and we reconnect again. We have to be aware of our connection with the Creator in this work.

A person must exert every effort to try to reveal the Creator, who fills the entire universe. This is possible only through the ten, by disappearing and dissolving in the friends, getting absorbed inside them so much that you’ll feel how the Creator stands behind all the friends, waiting for you to reveal Him.
From Twitter, 12/10/20

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“Hanukkah Offers Timely Reminder Of Need For Unity” (Newsmax)

My article in Newsmax: “Hanukkah Offers Timely Reminder of Need for Unity

On Hanukkah, which begins tonight, Jews celebrate their victory over the Seleucid Empire, which attempted to entrench the Hellenistic culture and belief system among the Jews in the land of Israel. This is the going narrative. However, this epos is not quite what happened.

Although everyone knows that the Maccabean Revolt, whose victory we celebrate on Hanukkah, was a civil war between the Hasmonean family and their adherents against Hellenistic Jews, we conveniently tell ourselves that we fought against the Greeks (the Seleucid Empire practiced and promoted the Greek culture of Hellenism). The Seleucids joined the war on the side of the Hellenists only toward the end, but for much of the war, it was Jews against Jews.

The war among the Jews stands for much more than a struggle for power; it is a clash of ideals, of paradigms, of perceptions, of reality. Judah Maccabee, the third son in the Hasmonean family, was the commander of the rebels against the Hellenists, but his whole family participated in key positions. The Hasmoneans were staunch believers in the ancient Jewish tenet of solidarity and mutual responsibility being the foundation of the nation. They believed that it was the role of the Jews to practice ”Love your neighbor as yourself” and be ”a light unto nations” by setting an example of unity above differences. Contrary to that, the Hellenists championed the Greek culture of worship of the self. The Hellenists put the ego at the center; the Hasmoneans put serving the community at the center of their wishes.

The struggle was not an internal Jewish squabble, but a fight over the vocation of the Jewish people — to save the world through its example. If the Jews relinquish their commitment to unity, then what is the purpose of the existence of Judaism altogether? Worse yet, if there are no Jews to unite and set an example, how will the world find unity?

The Hasmoneans believed wholeheartedly in the prophecy of Isaiah 42:6, ”And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light unto nations,” and the words of King Solomon (Prov. 10:12), ”Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes.” They saw it as their vocation to illustrate how love can be more important to people than hate, how they can rise above it in unity and peace.

The Hellenists, who tried to ingrain the opposite approach, that the ego is king and we should serve ourselves, were therefore not only their worst enemies, but as they saw it, the enemies of humanity. The Hasmoneans did not expect the Seleucids to adopt their faith and principles, but also they would not allow their culture to be overrun by the Greek culture, since then there would be no one to perpetuate the mission that the Jews were given at the foot of Mt. Sinai, to unite ”as one man with one heart” and thereby be ”a light unto nations.”

The Hasmoneans won the war and reinstalled their culture, and to this day, we celebrate their victory. However, their victory was short-lived. Hellenism, they learned, was not an external enemy, but a wily serpent lurking within. Soon after their victory, they, too, began to lose their moral standing and their sons became increasingly corrupt.

In the end, the Hellenistic culture took over the entire land of Israel as the Romans, whose culture derived from the Greeks, conquered the land and exiled the Jews for two millennia. In fact, even today, although Jews are purportedly the sovereign in Israel once more, the culture of the land is still Hellenism, and there is no trace of mutual responsibility or solidarity. If the people of Israel remain this way, they will lose the land once more since there is no need for them if not for the purpose of the creation: to be a light of unity to the nations.

Israel does not need the patronage of any country. Its strength lies not in its army or economy, but in its unity. If it lacks unity, the backing of powers will sustain it only for so long. But if the people unite, they will not need anyone’s protection since they will have no enemies.

Today, no commodity is more required than unity, yet no commodity is more scarce. Its sole producers are the people of Israel, and they are busy fighting among themselves both in Israel and around the world. As the world looks desperately for solutions to its escalating conflicts, it will turn its eyes to the Jews and ask, ”Why are you making us fight?”

Then, if the Jews do not remember their covenant, to be a light unto nations, they will be crushed once more. But if they do unite, they will shine the light of unity throughout the world, and all of humanity will celebrate the victory of the Maccabees, the joy of solidarity, over the Greeks, the reign of egoism.
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The Middle Line Is The Creator’s Patent

232.06The middle line is the Creator’s patent, a divine invention. Indeed, two forces of nature are combined in the middle line—positive and negative, bestowal and reception, love and hate, rejection and attraction—everything that exists in reality, both in the upper world of bestowal and in the lower world of receiving.

In this connection, they do not cancel each other but try to complement each other, which would seem impossible. After all, how can fire and water, hatred and love, connect, how can two opposites live and exist together in the middle line so that there will not be anything unnecessary in the universe? How was it possible to create such a perfect picture where it is impossible to remove or add a single detail?

We, in our world, do not understand this. People always want to destroy all the bad and have only good in their lives. But this is not the right approach.

Kabbalah is called the hidden wisdom because it teaches how to combine all the opposites in nature. One does not suppress the other, but through their combination, integration, they understand that they cannot exist without each other and that only by their right combination is perfection achieved.

Humanity is looking for all possible forms and methods of existence to achieve peace. This is not easy to do even between two people. Peace and perfection are the prerogative of the Creator and what man lacks.

The Creator created us with an evil inclination and gave us a little bit of good so that we would look for how to combine all this. And when we finally despair from the impossibility of combining these two opposites, we gradually begin to realize that a third force is missing. We do not need to cancel one of the forces as politicians and other people try to do, each in their own egoism.

If we develop correctly, we will see that there is nothing bad or good in the world. It is only necessary to bring good and evil together, and in their correct combination, we will discover the third state, perfection, woven from both of them.

That is why it is said, “Man and woman, if they are rewarded, the Shechina is between them.” Man and woman are two opposites, like fire and water. But perfection is possible when the Shechina, the presence of the Creator, is revealed between them.

The Creator is the third line, which is revealed precisely when trying to work correctly with two opposite lines. Bestowal without reception and reception without bestowal cannot exist. The correct connection between them is the wisdom of Kabbalah because this connection builds a spiritual vessel for receiving the light where there is a depth of desire and Holiness—everything necessary for the revelation of the third line, the Creator.

The middle line is the revelation of the Creator. It begins with Keter, which is higher than all the Sefirot, higher than creation. Then it continues in Sefira Daat, created by the connection of Hochma and Bina in the Sefira of Jacob. Then, in the connection of Hesed and Gevura, in Sefira Tifferet, which will be the middle line in the body. It ends at the end of the Partzuf, in the connection of Netzach and Hod—Sefira Yesod.

So we must each, within oneself and within the ten, find, clarify, and build this middle line in which we will reveal the Creator. Everyone should be both above and below everyone. That is, one becomes flexible in relation to one’s friends, ready to do anything to lead to global connection.

As a result, we become so flexible that we only think about how to support and strengthen our friends, and feel how the group is being shaped more and more correctly thanks to my efforts. Everyone who cares so much about the group builds himself as a middle line, directs himself exactly at the Creator, and reveals Him within himself.

But he came to the middle line precisely because he wanted to join the group, support it, and correctly perceive all its positive and negative states. These opposites should not create a short circuit and should not move infinitely away from each other, but they should be so close that the middle line system is built between them.

The middle line does not exist in nature; it must be constructed by us, as it is said: “You Have Made Me.”

Coming closer to the middle line begins when I realize that I am nothing without the friends and the group. When I come to the lesson preparation, I feel dead, empty, without feelings, unprepared. But when I hear my friends talking, waking each other up, I wake up too. It is through their awakening that I am reborn.

This is how my “day” begins, and I become more and more ready to meet the ten and the Creator within it. This is what practical Kabbalah consists of, building a middle line, a common place between us. And in this common area, we discover all our opposite qualities and states that the Creator has sent down to us from above and build a spiritual vessel from them in which we reveal Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/20, “Middle Line”

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“2020- An Odd, Yet Wonderful Year” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “2020- An Odd, Yet Wonderful Year

As a kabbalist, I think that 2020 has been the best year in all the years that I recall. It is the year when humanity began to shake off and get rid of everything it had in the former life: chasing after money, excessive self-indulgence, and other forms of taking where our only thought was about reception, and nothing else. In this year, nature came and slapped us, commanded us to stop, and we had no choice but to go home and quarantine ourselves. The pandemic forced us to think about life, or at least get rid of the previous life, and this is why it’s been so good.

For humanity, I think that 2020 will be remembered as an odd year, “the year of the blow.” It is a year that stopped everyone’s regular life, when people went to work, entertained themselves, traveled, and so forth. I think people will remember that all of a sudden, this blow came, the special virus that forbade them to come out of the house, run around wherever they want, shut down movie theatres, even parks, occasionally, restaurants, and bars. In other words, the virus shut down the rat race that forced us to look at others and want to do the same.

The drive to go to bars, movies, travel, and so forth is not inherent in us. What is inherent in us is the drive to be like everyone else. If I see that others are doing something and they tell me that it’s good, I am compelled to do the same. We are a herd.

But who is the shepherd? The shepherds are the people with money and power who want to manipulate us into going to movie theatres, bars, and restaurants, to travel and engage in various activities that are lucrative for them, and which give them power.
This way of life is over, thankfully. We will not be as before. Even if we see people trying to return to the previous way of life, it won’t work. It won’t be the same, won’t feel the same, and even if we travel, dine out, and do everything we did before, we won’t be able to enjoy it like we did. It will seem pathetic, empty, lame.

Nature is teaching us to change our relation to our lives, to natural treasures, and to human society. Bit by bit, we will see that the Covid-19 pandemic is changing us. The year 2020 is indeed a very special year; it is the year of the birth of the new humanity.

“Is Hanukkah A Jewish Holiday?” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Is Hanukkah a Jewish Holiday?

On Hanukkah, which will begin this coming Thursday, Jews celebrate their victory over the Seleucid Empire, which attempted to entrench the Hellenistic culture and belief system among the Jews in the land of Israel. This is the going narrative. However, this epos is not quite what happened. Although everyone knows that the Maccabean War, whose victory we celebrate on Hanukkah, was a civil war between the Hasmonean family and their adherents against Hellenistic Jews, we conveniently tell ourselves that we fought against the Greeks (the Seleucid Empire practiced and promoted the Greek culture of Hellenism). The Seleucids joined the war on the side of the Hellenists only toward the end, but for much of the war, it was Jews against Jews.

The war among the Jews stands for much more than a struggle for power; it is a clash of ideals, of paradigms, of perceptions of reality. Judah Maccabee, the third son in the Hasmonean family, was the commander of the rebels against the Hellenists, but his whole family participated in key positions.

The struggle was not an internal Jewish squabble, but a fight over the vocation of the Jewish people—to save the world through its example. If the Jews relinquish their commitment to unity, then what is the purpose of the existence of Judaism altogether? Worse yet, if there are no Jews to unite and set an example, how will the world find unity? The Hasmoneans believed wholeheartedly in the prophecy of Isaiah (42:6), “And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light unto nations,” and the words of King Solomon (Prov. 10:12), “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes.” They saw it as their vocation to illustrate how love can be more important to people than hate, how they can rise above it in unity and peace. The Hellenists, who tried to ingrain the opposite approach, that the ego is king and we should serve ourselves, were therefore not only their worst enemies, but as they saw it, the enemies of humanity. The Hasmoneans did not expect the Seleucids to adopt their faith and principles, but they would also not allow their culture to be overrun by the Greek culture, since then there would be no one to perpetuate the mission that the Jews were given at the foot of Mt. Sinai, to unite “as one man with one heart” and thereby be “a light unto nations.”

The Hasmoneans won the war and reinstalled their culture, and to this day, we celebrate their victory. However, their victory was short lived. Hellenism, they learned, was not an external enemy, but a wily serpent lurking within. Soon after their victory, they, too, began to lose their moral standing and their sons became increasingly corrupt.

In the end, the Hellenistic culture took over the entire land of Israel as the Romans, whose culture derived from the Greeks, conquered the land and exiled the Jews for two millennia. In fact, even today, although Jews are purportedly the sovereign in Israel once more, the culture of the land is still Hellenism, and there is no trace of mutual responsibility or solidarity. If the people of Israel remain this way, they will lose the land once more since there is no need for them if not for the purpose of the creation: to be a light of unity to the nations.

Israel does not need the patronage of any country. Its strength lies not in its army or economy, but in its unity. If it lacks unity, the backing of powers will sustain it only for so long. But if the people unite, they will not need anyone’s protection since they will have no enemies.

Today, no commodity is more required than unity, yet no commodity is more scarce. Its sole producers are the people of Israel, and they are busy fighting among themselves both in Israel and around the world. As the world looks desperately for solutions to its escalating conflicts, it will turn its eyes to the Jews and ask, “Why are you making us fight?” Then, if the Jews do not remember their covenant, to be a light unto nations, they will be crushed once more. But if they do unite, they will shine the light of unity throughout the world, and all of humanity will celebrate the victory of the Maccabees, the joy of solidarity, over the Greeks, the reign of egoism.
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“Imagine A Better World, It Can Become A Reality” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Imagine A Better World, It Can Become A Reality

John Lennon, who was murdered forty years ago today, imagined a common world without borders, without greed and without hunger, one world that is all love—and his message spoke to the hearts of masses of people. The idea of a more tolerant, equalitarian and embracing world still resonates today.

A dream of global love lives in everyone, so even in this time when everything is exploited for commercial purposes in a rough and alienated world, we still prefer to see movies where love prevails and to hear mostly love songs. All of culture all over the world revolves around the theme of love, and if hatred occasionally appears, it comes as an ugly counterpoint to contrast the beauty of love. It is natural. Every person has no more inner desire than a bond of love. It causes us to aspire to it through all the materialistic layers of the time and environment we live in.

So the world Lennon imagined is not utopian. A world full of love is a beautiful and good goal and it should find its place among us if we first just aim for it. Not a love of flowers woven into the hair and birds chirping. There is nothing wrong with them, but a deeper and realistic experience of love is built with the core material of humans. It is called hatred. That is how the world was created, with two sides of the same coin, love and hatred, interacting all the time until they achieve balance.

Love begins with a situation where two people reject and even hate each other, and without erasing the differences and ignoring the gaps, they build a mutual agreement on top of their divergences. This is a technique that exists in nature called “Love will cover all crimes.” One who manages to love like this without expecting anything in return, like nature does, will always have a burning heart full of joy of life.

We do not have to wait for others to start loving us some day, it all depends entirely on the person. If we want to be unconditionally loving, if we learn how to get out of ourselves into others, then beyond all imagination we will discover a world without limits for ourselves, a world without greed and without hunger. Such a person will find the inner power that sustains the world and connects everything into one.

Separated By Computer Screens

959Question: Currently nature has separated us with the coronavirus as well as computer screens. We are developing a kind of virtual reality. What is the next stage of the communication level between us?

Answer: When we understand that in the correct connection between us, not the Internet connection, but with corrected feelings, we can create a form of unity that will allow us to feel the hidden layer of nature, then we will begin to reveal nature in its true form.

Question: It is clear that physical communication between people is much harder than virtual because it requires energy and attention. It is much easier to contact others through screens. Once we learn to communicate through screens, will we be able to communicate physically on a different level?

Answer: Maybe. I hope that this is what will happen. I can see from the spread of Kabbalah in the world that this is how we are developing.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/7/20

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“Racing Right” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Racing Right

From the very first competition, between Esau and Jacob, we’ve seen people competing against each other. We know that competition can give purpose to life, and who doesn’t love winners? But we also know that competition can be destructive to the losers, and sometimes also to the winners.

Even great athletes are often also depressed, sometimes even clinically. Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, and Aly Raisman are just some of the more famous names of countless athletes who have struggled with depression despite making history in their sports. In fact, an NCAA survey of athletes found that 30 percent reported feeling depressed over the course of a year. So is competition good or bad?

Like everything else, it’s good, if you do it properly. Competition can be a positive impetus for development and growth or restrain and impede our progress, depending on the goal of the competition. When we compete in order to glorify ourselves, it is egoistic competition. In this type of contest, you are only as good as your latest triumph. Such competition cannot lead to anything good because we all lose sometime, and we all grow old or tired, or someone outsmarts us.

But we can partake in a completely different kind of competition, where the one who gives the most is the winner. In such a contest, the more “fiercely” we compete, the closer we become to one another. The grand prize, of course, goes to the one who loves his neighbor as himself.

In antiquity, the people of Israel developed their nationhood based on exactly that kind of competitiveness. When they were more successful, they grew closer and stronger. When they were less successful and could not overcome their natural resentment to giving, they grew more hateful and therefore weaker as a nation, and usually lost to some external enemy. According to our sages, this is how the two Temples were ruined.

A competition of giving may seem far-fetched to us right now, but it is so only because our current society doesn’t advocate unity, but separation and worship of the self, so anything that “smells” of giving seems repugnant. If, however, our purpose were to form a cohesive society based on mutual responsibility and solidarity, as did the ancient Israelites, a competition of giving would be the most natural kind, and the selfish kind would seem repulsive.

The latter kind, which idolizes the self, is the kind that was practiced in ancient Rome; it is the Hellenistic kind, not the Hebrew kind. Since the ruin of the Second Temple, the Hellenistic mindset has dominated the world. Now that people are beginning to see that self-indulgence can get you only so far, it is time we tried the other way, the Hebrew way: giving and bonding, loving others and connecting above differences. The sooner we adopt this kind of competition, the better it is for all of us.

“Why Israel Is Going For (Yet Another) Election” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Why Israel Is Going for (Yet Another) Election

Israel, it seems, is going for yet another general election in what seems to be a never ending series. It’s not as if these campaigns yield very different results each time, but the political deadlock seems to leave politicians with no choice but to go for one election after the other, knowing they will solve nothing. And it’s true, they won’t solve anything because when politicians want separation so that they can have their piece of the pie, nothing will be resolved. Only when a leader who genuinely wants to unite the entire people rises, Israel will be out of the impasse.

Since its beginning, Israel adopted a version of the British parliamentary system and attempted to implement it in the new country. But what works for other nations will not work for us. Just as ancient Jewish Law was fundamentally different from that of its neighbors in antiquity, so now we must nurture a system that serves our purpose in being a sovereign nation.

Israel was formed out of outcasts from various nations and tribes. These castaways rejected their faiths and traditions and joined Abraham’s group since he established his group based on the principle of unity above all differences. Abraham maintained that although we are all different, and although we harbor hatred for each other, we must cultivate the element of mercy among us and crown it as our prime goal. This is why Abraham symbolizes the quality of mercy.

Abraham did not deny the hatred among the members of his group, but stressed that only if we build above it the quality of mercy, we will build a strong nation. Centuries later, King Solomon phrased that principle succinctly when he said, “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes” (Prov. 10:12).

Israel’s leadership was always about unity, not about division. The Mishnah (Sanhedrin 4:3) writes that “The Sanhedrin was as a round semicircle so they would see each other.” The book Likutei Halachot explains what these words mean: “The love is mainly that they saw each other, for they could not tolerate one not seeing one’s friend. …The vitality is mainly through peace and love among Israel, which is regarded as seeing one another. …This is the meaning of what our sages said, ‘company or death,’ for vitality is mainly through love of friends … since when there is no love and there is separation, it is impossible to receive vitality and it is regarded as death … for the separation between each other is regarded as death.”

That was the system of governance of our forefathers. If we compare this to our current system, we can see how far we are from where we should be.

Israel has no place among the nations unless it functions the way Abraham had intended. If we don’t, the nations turn against us, as they have so many times before, and thereby force us to unite. But temporal unity will give us nothing more than a break from the pressure. If we want to resolve Israel’s problems, we have to start functioning as a spiritual nation, the way we were meant to function—a nation that spreads the light of unity above differences, and thereby becomes “a light unto nations.”

In the current system, we will keep bickering until we start fighting one another physically. Before the fall of the Second Temple, the Romans put a siege around Jerusalem and waited for the Jews inside to kill each other and make their conquest that much easier. By not realizing why we are here and what we need to do, and by insisting that only we are right and they are wrong, instead of trying to forge unity above our differences and hatred, we are doing to ourselves what our forefathers did to themselves back then. Clearly, nothing good will come out of this.
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