Question: We cannot attribute the feeling of love to the still, vegetative, and animate levels because they do not have freedom of choice. The interaction of objects at these levels is due to genes, laws, and instincts. We can talk about love only where there is freedom of choice, where there is an opportunity to rise above one’s egoistic nature.

When we talk about divine or absolute, selfless love, then we are talking about love for the property of bestowal and this means one must be in this property all the time. Can we say that to love the property of bestowal is love?

Answer: Yes. At the same time, you treat the other in such a way that none of his bad effects on you prevent you from loving him.

Question: And the property of bestowal, is it in me or in him?

Answer: It is in you. The other person has nothing to do with it.

Question: How does one determine whether a person is loving purely selfishly or if it is altruistic love?

Answer: This is impossible to determine. To do this, you would need to find out whether he loves you for money or if he loves you selflessly. What is he selfless about?

There is no concept related to “love” in Kabbalah. Love is defined as pleasure. The so-called love for one’s neighbor, for the Creator, or for oneself, whether it is egoistic or altruistic love, is determined by the measure of the use of one’s own egoism for oneself in contrast with the use of one’s own egoism for the sake of another. Therefore, we move away from the concept of “love.”

Even when it is said, “love your neighbor as yourself,” this means that just as egoistically as you treat yourself, you should treat others in exactly the same way. That is, as you fill yourself, you should fill another to the same extent.
[275151]
From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/23/20

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Question: In order to love others, do I first need to understand how I love myself?

Answer: This is realized while working on the spiritual path. As you strive to love others, you will realize how much you hate them and love yourself.

Question: It is said that one should love one’s neighbor. Who is the “neighbor?”

Answer: A neighbor is any person on Earth, no matter whom. Almost all people are my parts. I am a common organism that includes all people on Earth. Therefore, I must love them all.

Question: Can I go from easy to hard in this love?

Answer: Sure. First, treat your loved ones, relatives, friends, and fellow tribesmen in this way, and then treat everyone else.

You must fill your neighbor with what he wants and please him. Not what you think is best for him, but what he wants.

Question: What if I don’t have what he wants?

Answer: Then you cannot fill him with anything but your pleasant striving for it.

Question: At least he should know that I am always ready to fill him, even if I don’t have what he wants?

Answer: Yes. By doing this you simply pave the way to him and the Creator already shines through you to this person.

Question: In return, I should not expect some kind of reverse action from him?

Answer: No. When it is said about loving your neighbor, it means that you must love him. His attitude toward you does not matter. You do not expect anything from him at all.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 23/10/20

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Question: It would be logical to imagine that virtual communities could help people communicate and in real life, but it turns out to be the opposite. Why?

Answer: Because people are ruled by their egoism. You can do nothing about it. Until we correct it, any methods and forms of communication will harm us.

Question: Some futurists believe that computer games will turn out to provide meaning in life for a useless social class. This is what they call people who have lost their jobs. There may be billions of such people. They will be provided with a basic income and games so that they will not riot. Do you see such a scenario being possible?

Answer: Unfortunately, I do. However, this is not the final form of human development but only an intermediary one. Indeed, this could happen.

Question: Today, a person is in daily contact with so many people that he has never met in his entire life. What opportunity does this give to us? How can one properly use this phenomenon for personal growth?

Answer: I think that today, this phenomenon is hampering our personal growth, and an ordinary person does not have any opportunity to break away from it and grow.
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From KabTV’s “Communication Skills” 10/7/20

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Question: Can you point at something in our world that we impact as a result of the unity in the ten?

Answer: I cannot say because it is about actions that have never been implemented in our world. We are pioneers who are starting the correction in this respect, in changing and improving the world from the bottom up.

The question is on which levels the response in our world will be revealed and whether it will be on the level of the still nature, the ecology, the climate, or on the level of human society.

The outcome must be greater closeness between people and greater balance between societies and states.

I believe it will be revealed on all levels, but it seems to me that we will reveal changes on the social level quite soon because it is the most dynamic and the closest to us. The signs from it are more serious, stronger, and sharper than from anything else.

We will take part in this experiment together and will begin to look at the outcomes and to discern them.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/5/19

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic of “I Dwell Among My Own People”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3, Chapter 10, Item 2″    

Lesson on the Topic of “The Law of Love in the System of Adam HaRishon”

Selected Highlights

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If we looked at humanity like a population of rats, we would agree that in the course of the crisis, it has to undergo quantitative and qualitative changes.
What matters is to aim for unity—this will ensure the best result for the population!

With the new mutation of the #coronavirus, humanity may have to halt transports between countries… until it realizes that nature, through its influence, will force us to be aligned with its integral structure—to attain complete unity.

Unrest in developed countries, the USA and Europe, indicates that humanity has reached the following stage of its development—the need to unite above all the contradictions, FOR THE SAKE OF attaining the upper goal: above the boundary of life-death lies the transition into eternal existence while still in this life…
From Twitter, 12/21/20

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The EU Court of Justice Spelled It Out for Jews: Leave Europe!”

Last week, the European Union Court of Justice upheld a ban on kosher and hallal slaughter in Belgium, The Jerusalem Post reported. While Brooke Goldstein, who helped with the legal challenge, called it a “shameful ruling,” and warned that “the religious freedom of millions of Europeans has been put in jeopardy,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry seems to have “read the lips” of the EU court more clearly, stating that the decision “signals to Jewish communities that they are not wanted in Europe.”

This would not be the first time that European countries have used kosher slaughter bans as a means to deter Jews from immigrating to them or as a way to push them out. According to The Jerusalem Post, President of the Conference of European Rabbis, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, said bans on religious slaughter have been an attempt to control a country’s population and can be traced back to the 1800s, when Switzerland attempted to stop Jews fleeing pogroms from entering their country, and can also be traced to Nazi Germany. According to Goldschmidt, “Europe needs to reflect on the type of continent it wants to be.”

In my view, Europe has already reflected on this question and decided that it wants to be Jew-free. Several countries, such as Denmark, Iceland, and Finland, are already mulling a ban on circumcision, and the recent EU Court of Justice ruling on kosher food is certain to encourage other countries to follow in Belgium’s footsteps.

Antisemitism in Europe is deeply rooted. Jews have been beaten, banished, and burned all over the continent for as long as they have lived there. The fact that technology has made life easier has not changed people’s hearts. If we need proof, we need only look to the events of the 1940s, when the most civilized country in Europe, and possibly the world, and the second most technologically advanced (after the United States), resolved to eliminate the Jews.

If anything surprises me about this decision, it is the reaction of Jewish leaders. If they are genuinely surprised by this decision, it is very discouraging.

In my view, within a year or two, many other countries will join Belgium’s decision and will take action to deter Jews from living in them. It will happen all over Europe. Another possible scenario, which is even more radical than bans in specific countries, is that the EU court will resolve to ban Jewish laws all over Europe.

There is a Russian antisemitic joke that every Jew who leaves Moscow gets a “Liberator of Moscow” medal. I think Europeans, too, will be happy to award Jews medals for moving out of their cities and countries. It is not unlike what Hitler did when he sent out 900 Jews from Germany on the luxurious ocean-liner SS St. Louis en route to Cuba and from there to the US, but neither Cuba nor the US would have them so they were forced back to Europe, where many of them perished in the Holocaust.

I truly wish we Jews were smarter. It’s as if our nation is stupefied by complacency, and an opaque cloud of folly comes over us in good times and doesn’t let us see how perilous matters have become. We think that as long as we can do business in Europe, and as long as we have some friends who aren’t Jewish, we’re safe. This is not the case and it is no longer safe. In Europe, the good times are over, and in the US, they’re quickly ending, too.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do some people abuse children? Is there some psychological reason for this?“

It is due to the human ego, which is the nature of every person and holds us back from relating to others as to ourselves.

Some people find themselves harming others—whether children, the elderly, or others whom they perceive as able to be their prey—simply because they enjoy such abuse. They feel a great pleasure of control that suddenly fulfills them.

Nothing can get such people out of this need to control. We see how abusive tendencies surface even in well-educated and well-mannered people who might have been philanthropic their entire lives, and all of a sudden, they cannot hold themselves anymore and explode. Usually, it is because they feel that nobody can control them, and so they express their own control.

There will be no end to such upsurges taking place in certain people until the human ego—the desire to benefit at the expense of others—inverts into its opposite form—a desire to positively connect with others above the ego’s harmful drives.

Moreover, we can expect more and more such incidents to occur since the human ego is constantly growing, demanding more and more fulfillment, if we fail to undergo this transformation.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does multiculturalism work?“

Multiculturalism is necessary at a certain period of human development, but when we further develop, it will drift away.

We need to reach a state where we understand that we need to simply be human beings, as alike as possible, without any special distinctions. There will indeed be a great diversity of people, but we will not relate to this diversity as cultural. We were not born into cultures. They are acquired, and are thus not rigid truths.

Diversity should rather pertain to opportunities for progress in positive connection with others until complete unification is achieved. Our inborn diversity coupled with the similarity that we achieve through the realization of opportunities to positively connect to each other, will give rise to a whole new kind of fulfillment and harmony throughout human society. We will feel as if we all share a common language, and that we are all members of the same nation and family.

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