Medium published my new article “Humanity in Labor Pains”

Clearly, we’re headed for an unusual year. We’re headed for an unusual year in America, an unusual year in Israel, an unusual year in Russia, an unusual year all over the world. We’re headed for a year of labor pains. A new world is emerging, and we are seeing its efforts to be born. For our part, we must help it materialize sooner rather than later, quicker rather than slower, and easier rather than harder.

There is pressure from all sides to be born, so let’s be born together; let’s shift from the state of division and alienation to the first state of connection in the quickest, smoothest way we can.

First, we must understand that the forces pressing on us from all sides are necessary. Otherwise, we won’t be born into the new world. Second, we must help the baby slide out of the birth canal more easily. The birth we’re going through right now is very special. We are not only emerging from one reality into another, from slavery to freedom. Our ego is being reborn in a new way; it is being inverted.

On the other side of the birth canal lies a new humanity, a new understanding, new feeling, the union of the power of connection that will be born between us. Within the ego, the quality of giving will be born; this is the embryo! The midwife is Nature, and we must help her deliver the newborn into the world by explaining the integral, interconnected reality being formed within us and among us.

We must understand, and help others understand the idea of connection. It is not the same type of connection that you see in sports teams or in companies in the corporate world, where teams team up against other teams and fight each other to the (metaphoric) death. We are talking about understanding that connection is a value in and of itself, not a means for another purpose, but the goal itself.

It is not only the goal, it is the highest possible value, the zenith of man’s achievements, when one can unite with others in a way that the individual senses the collective as though they are part of the individual, as if my body has spread across the globe and all of humanity and all of nature are cells and organs in my body. Rav Kook had some beautiful phrases about this inclusiveness. In his book Orot [Lights], he wrote, “Our soul will spread in everyone, embrace everyone, sustain and encourage everyone, and will bring everyone back to the place of our house of life.”

2020 was the first year when everything fell apart all over the world simultaneously. However, the surprising thing is that it didn’t destroy humanity; it simply stopped us in our tracks; things stopped working. Covid-19 stopped the global economy and the destruction of Nature, and the presidential election shattered what little faith people had in the government or in each other.

The bottom line is that we have neither a government we can trust nor an economy we can rely on, and we feel insecure about our health, wealth (if we had any), and mainly our future. This is a crisis.

However, a crisis is also the birthplace of newborn babies. In Hebrew, by the way, the word mashber means both “crisis” and the chair on which women in labor were placed in antiquity to help them deliver. Today, all of humanity is sitting on that mashber.

We, people who are aware of the shift humanity is going through, who understand that only connection above all our many differences will lift us to a new reality of peace and friendship, must help the rest of the world process the message. We need to help humanity go through the delivery with the least amount of blood being spilled.

Every birth is painful. However, since we are already in the labor, we might as well go through it with the least amount of pain. Mother Nature is already pushing us out, demanding that we understand where we are, grow up, and we, too, do not want to stay ignorant of our position and role in the universe.
There is pressure from all sides to be born, so let’s be born together; let’s shift from the state of division and alienation to the first state of connection in the quickest, smoothest way we can.
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Question: What is action “for the sake of the Creator”?

Answer: For the sake of the Creator means that I try, using myself and my friend, to achieve such a state between us, where we will strive for absolute mutual bestowal, relationship, and love so much as to reveal a higher force that exists in nature besides our selfishness.

Question: That is, if I do an action and expect some kind of benefit, then this is not called a giving action. And if I do something without any benefit for myself and at the same time still enjoy, then this is considered bestowal?

Answer: There is still a benefit. It is about producing the very action of bestowal.

Question: Are there any examples of this?

Answer: In our world, no.

Question: How do we learn without examples?

Answer: Try to express them between you in a group. Therefore, we must be in a group of our own kind in order to somehow cultivate these actions, to implement them between ourselves, to operate with them.

Question: Why is everything so arranged that there are no examples? If the Creator wants me to give, let Him show what giving is.

Answer: Where will you see it?

Comment: Let’s say in society.

My Response: There is no such society! It is all messed up!

Comment: Let the Kabbalists set an example.

My Response: You will not be able to see altruistic actions, because you will evaluate them in the measure of your depravity. The only thing that needs to be done, per the Kabbalists’ advice, is to make and begin to realize such relationships between themselves. Although they are not yet in your desires, you can perform them in your actions. This is called “above your desires.”

Start treating each other as if you are really in a good connection, in love, in bestowal, in mutual assistance. And then see how it affects you and pulls you forward.

Question: Suppose I am in a city, all the inhabitants of which are Kabbalists and cognizant, altruists, and I alone am an egoist. And I won’t be able to see their correct relations?

Answer: If Kabbalists do not demonstrate this, then you will not see. And if these are ordinary people who play with each other in giving and helping each other, then you will see and move forward.

Question: That is, the very intention is hidden from me. Why can’t you show it?

Answer: So that you ask to see and implement it. Therefore, Kabbalah is called the “secret science.” You have to want it. You are obliged to look for an appropriate environment, create it, be impressed by it, and then you will gradually acquire the property of bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/3/19

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Question: If a Kabbalist sees how completely different people unite and in this unification with each other reveal the force called the “Creator,” this brings him joy. What about if people just unite without revealing the Creator?

Answer: When people unite not for the sake of good participation, a good goal, it manifests itself as a negative attitude toward the Creator.

Comment: Let’s say they unite to listen to a symphony or watch football.

My Response: If at the same time they do not pursue the goal of harming someone, then this is also good.

When my teacher and I were driving past the stadium where a soccer match was taking place and where the noises were coming from, he always said: “This place should be respected because the game brings joy to people.”

Question: That is, any kind of unification that fills people is called joy, and the Kabbalist himself rejoices in this positive emotion when looking at them?

Answer: Yes. And if he himself causes such emotions in others through his participation, then, naturally, he rejoices with his positive results.

Question: Rabash writes that joy can always be added. There is no such state when a person says: “That’s it, I have enough.” Does one constantly lack something?

Answer: Yes, because we do not have absolute fulfillment, full joy. In principle, we would like to reach such a state, but it is purely utopian.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/3/19

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Maimonides has already given a true allegory about that: “If a line of a thousand blind walk along the way, and there is at least one leader amongst them who can see, they are certain to take the right path and not fall in the pits and obstacles, since they are following the sighted one who leads them.

But if that person is missing, they are certain to stumble over every hurdle on the way, and will all fall into the pit.” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 57)

Question: Is it possible for a person who has already found a teacher and has begun to follow the right path, to later fall off track?

Answer: This indicates a lack of connection with the teacher. A student must constantly keep this connection alive. If he doesn’t renew it, the teacher continues to move forward, while the student gradually moves to the side on a tangent until the connection between them is totally lost.

It is very interesting to observe this process, how a student hears less and less, comes to the lessons less and less, and then disappears.

The main thing is that the teacher cannot say anything about this to the student. The student must scrutinize this himself and understand how to operate in mutual cooperation with the teacher.

But it must be clear to him, that the moment he does not hold on to the teacher, like a child who holds onto a grownup, he doesn’t know where he is. After all, there are many situations when he is like a small child who is lost in a crowd, and doesn’t know who to hold on to and where to go. He must acquire this feeling of closeness or detachment from the teacher.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 2/12/18

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A game seems like a frivolous topic. But if a game is the means to rise from the animate to the human level, then it turns out that it is the most important thing in our development, in human society.

After all, we teach children through games, raise people from animals to be fit for society and the time in which they live; we teach them to have the right attitude to the world around them and to the people next to them. All this determines the degree of human.

Therefore, the most important thing is to play, study, and adapt a person to the world. And all the more important is educating a person and bringing him in line with the upper world, which is also called a game. And we must treat it as the most serious occupation.

If we correctly build our relation to the upper world, or rather, to the Creator, then we come close to Him. And along the way, we study Him, understand Him, enter into connection with Him, into mutual communication, until we merge with Him and reach full equivalence of form.

Therefore, the word game seems frivolous, but in fact, it is the most serious occupation. All the changes we want to make in the world depend only on changing ourselves through the game. Nothing changes outside of us, but only in our perception.

The world is my sensation. And the game is the means by which we can easily make internal changes so as not to lose our way and each time shift to a new, more and more advanced level of perception.

It is possible that future states do not attract me very much because I must love those whom I now hate or am at least indifferent to. And I must treat myself differently than before, gain new qualities and thoughts, prefer some and reject others. To do this, I need exercises that I myself must assign and go through, that is, to play them.

I must constantly establish what states I want to go through; that is, I must pull out my desires and thoughts, my egoism, into new states. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we study how to build games through which we will grow. And the most important game is in the group.

With the help of the game, we can shift from a comfortable state to such states that do not seem very pleasant to us: to bestow, love, connection. These states will turn from unwanted to desirable, from repulsive to attractive, from hateful to beloved. All changes occur due to the fact that we imagine ourselves in new states, build systems, and gradually change, and turn into new people.

What used to seem disgusting: bestowal, love, involvement, now seems the most attractive and good. What was hated and rejected becomes desirable, and we are ready to do anything to achieve a new state.

The game is a transition from the current state to the desired or even not desired yet. The means to shift from state to state is called a game in which I must be an expert and improve my skills every time.

And if I change myself with this game, then the whole world changes as a result of it. I start to change my priorities and evaluate everything differently according to my changes. Therefore, through such a game, I do not adjust myself to the world, but I change, correct, and improve the world.

If we can play to change our states, then this is the most effective means to achieve the goal, and it is at the center of all our work.

We grow up like children—as they grow up, their world changes. You can not consider yourself an adult and not subject to change. On the contrary, if we are constantly changing, we will see how the world constantly changes. Therefore, we will always remain children, young and full of life, constantly changing and moving forward.

Therefore, playing is the most important means to achieve the goal of creation, to bring oneself to the equivalence of form with the Creator, that is, to merge with Him. The game includes education, study, theoretical and practical exercises, and all kinds of connections.

The main thing is to look for means to help us change, to constantly check whether my view of the environment, myself, and the purpose of creation has changed since yesterday. What exactly has changed in me in relation to my friends, the ten? So the game becomes very important for a person.

Children play all the time. And then we grow up and stop playing. We dream of being adults, but this just means ceasing to develop. From a developmental point of view, we become dead. Therefore, we need to remain young in spirit, that is, to change all the time, play on a higher level relative to the present, and so to advance more and more.

In everyday life, we try to buy children educational games that expand their horizons and stimulate growth. In the same way, in the spiritual work, we must always look for what we can grow by. And the main tool is the articles of the Kabbalists and their implementation in the ten where we evaluate our progress: the closer we get to each other, the closer we are to the Creator.

We must set an example to each other in this game and awaken in order to ultimately unite so that all hearts merge in the center of the ten, and we will reach our first spiritual degree.

In the material world, playing is considered frivolous, but in the spiritual world, on the contrary, it is the most serious activity. It is by playing out the next state and striving to achieve it that we advance and grow.

Our whole life is a game. After all, the Creator initially threw us out of His system, and we need to play to get back there and become Adam, that is, one man with one heart.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/21, “Play”

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The Book of Zohar was written by people who had an inner attainment of the universe at the level of the highest world, the world of Infinity. These were ten great Kabbalists who managed to connect with each other. Each of them, in essence, represented a certain spiritual category, called Sefira.

Together, they formed the ten Sefirot, meaning a single whole at the highest level, and therefore, were able to create through themselves a connection between the highest level of nature and its lowest level, our world. By creating a system of mutual connection, they gave us the opportunity to climb it from our low, primitive, vicious level to the highest.

Along the way, we change ourselves so much that we become an integral part of the upper nature, eternal and perfect. Our body is no longer identified with us. We feel a completely different state in the soul, we begin to feel the forces that control us, we pass from matter to forces, and matter gradually disappears from our sensations. We do not attach any importance to it, it seems to move away from our perception.

Comment: It’s still scary to lose our material.

My Response: No. Conversely. Our impressions become much clearer, brighter, more effective, and more powerful.

In this, man becomes like the Creator. He begins to see from the end of the world to the end. His horizons are expanding. He sees the causes and consequences of everything that happens, understands the ultimate goal and can choose the right decision from any circumstances.

This gives him the opportunity to act intelligently, rationally, which in our world absolutely doesn’t exist. Here we stumble on mistakes every time, go and make the next mistakes, and the next ones, never correcting them. We don’t even have the ability to correct ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #2

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Comment: If a person is present in the general system, then accordingly there should be relations between the parts of the system that are built in a certain way according to a correct algorithm.

My Response: The only correct algorithm regarding relations would be for each part of the system to exist only in order to support all the other parts and for itself, it would only get as much as it needed to function correctly in this way.

Question: How do the male and female parts of the system, literally husband and wife, relate to this?

Answer: Husband and wife should be focused on supporting each other as well as what is produced from their relationship.

Question: How can a woman support her husband as effectively as possible? In what way should this support be carried out in relation to his development, in terms of his existence in the corporeal world, and perhaps in terms of a spiritual goal?

Answer: I don’t think there is much difference between men and women or husbands and wives. They must both live according to an understanding of the meaning of their existence. What end should they come to? What is the most important thing in their lives?

They need to keep working on this. There are a lot of options here, but all of them should be aimed at achieving a common goal.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 12/7/20

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Question: If thought is the greatest force in creation, then the question arises, “Where does it come from? Is it born in my brain or does it come from somewhere outside?

Answer: It comes from outside. All thoughts exist around us and form a force field. We connect to it, and thus acquire this or that thought. Nothing exists for nothing. Nothing suddenly appears by itself.

Question: Does this have something to do with the system of souls?

Answer: Certainly. Everything is absolutely connected with each other on different levels. Therefore, the field of thoughts, the field of feelings, and the field of desires are connected with each other, and a person as if is floating in this. We all define each other’s states.
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From KabTV’s “Ask a Kabbalist” 12/31/18

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Question: I recently watched your video where you say that you cannot get a divorce, only as the last resort when there are children involved.

So what can I do when there are no feelings left for each other and the children see that? When there is only fighting and annoyance with each other? How can it be good for the children to grow up in such an atmosphere? I don’t love him, do you understand? Don’t hold me back.

My Response: I am holding you back. I would like to restrain both you and him. Because you are no longer children like your kids  you need to understand that it is still much better for you, for your children, for your family, and for society for you not to divorce, but simply to stop paying attention to certain feelings.

Question: But how can they achieve peace, more or less?

Answer: They should agree not to annoy each other. That’s it! What else is there to do? Let your relationship involve a bit of politics, some agreement and reasoning, rising above yourselves.
To say: “I don’t like things about him, he doesn’t like things about me” is childish!

Question: In general, it is possible to agree on areas to avoid?

Answer: Absolutely! If they already have children, then they are clearly mature people. If you have children, you have no right to divorce. For the sake of your children. The kids won’t forgive you. They will carry it with them throughout their lives.

Question: So, if she thinks about the children at this moment, and not about herself, about her annoyance?

Answer: Then she will not be annoyed.

Question: What does it involve? Forgiveness of all his mistakes or what? How to make concessions here?

Answer: To reduce each other’s vulnerability, your sensitivity to each other, claims against each other. Imagine that the other has a right to his behavior, to his life. And at the same time, you have a common life. And this common life, first of all, concerns your children, and not you personally. Don’t be so selfish! Live for the sake of the children. This should not be a source of pain for your children.

Question: Is this the real responsibility?

Answer: Yes. Of course.

Comment: People don’t think that children are affected by this their whole lives.

My Response: No. This will have a big impact on the children. And the children will also get divorced because their parents did the same.

Question: Does it follow the chain?

Answer: It does.

Question: And it extends to the next generation?

Answer: Yes. And if they didn’t see the parent’s divorce, then, despite the fact that there are very big differences between them and general fighting, children will still preserve their families.

Question: So you also look at other generations?

Answer: Certainly. Because “what parents do serves as an example for children.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/23/20

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