Audio Version Of The Blog – 3/5/21

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

“Open Letter To The International Criminal Court” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Open Letter to the International Criminal Court

To: The International Criminal Court (ICC)

Subject: The Court’s announcement that it will open a formal probe against Israel concerning alleged “war crimes” during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge military campaign.

The ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, recently stated that “The decision to open an investigation followed a painstaking preliminary examination.” More importantly, the prosecutor asserted, “My office takes the same principled, non-partisan, approach that it has adopted in all situations over which its jurisdiction is seized,” and the investigation “will be conducted independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favor.” At the same time, the court admitted, “The ICC is not a panacea, but only seeks to … promote accountability … in an effort to deter [war] crimes.”

But the Jews have long forgotten all about their achievement. They, too, have fallen prey to hatred and have become hostile to their own people just as before they united for the first time in antiquity. In such a state, they cannot set an example of unity; they can only project hatred, which they do in abundance. And because of the world’s expectation from them to project unity, the more they hate each other, the more the world hates them and accuses them of causing wars.

An effort to deter war crimes is a noble goal, no doubt, but I respectfully disagree with the means to achieve it. I, too, am unhappy with the way that the Jewish people and the Jewish state are conducting themselves. However, I think that in order to alleviate the suffering of the parties involved in this conflict, the pressure on Israel should focus on what Israel projects to the world, and not only to the issue of the Palestinians.

No institutions are more preoccupied with the State of Israel than the UN and its various subsidiaries. Many people, Jews for the most part, feel that this “obsession” with the Jewish state reflects a double standard that stems from antisemitism. I, too, believe that the UN is thoroughly antisemitic, but I also understand why this is so. Additionally, I do not think that the “obsession” with Israel is uncalled for. In my view, it is a natural phenomenon that stems from people’s inherent feeling that Israel is an obstructive force. For this reason, I view the nations’ preoccupation with Israel as an attempt to deal with what they perceive as a problem.

I agree that Israel is an obstructive force, but for a different reason than the one that the international community stipulates. In my view, Israel is an obstructive force because the internal division among Israelis reflects negatively on the world and excites conflicts throughout the globe. The nations do not blame Israel for all the wars because Israel actually starts them. They blame it because Israel is projecting the venom and hatred that then cause wars to erupt. And how does Israel do this? The hatred of Israelis for each other reflects on the entire world and poisons the air throughout the planet.

In my book Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, I elaborate on the origin and significance of the Jewish people to the well-being of the world. Israel, being the Jewish state, should be a leader in carrying out the duty of the Jewish people toward the world. We must remember that the Jewish people is not an ethnicity in its own right, but the descendants of ancestors who came from the numerous tribes, clans, and peoples that inhabited the ancient world in the Fertile Crescent. These people became a nation only after they resolved to rise above their animosity, which stemmed from their different origins and roots. In having achieved this unthinkable union, they presented the world with a method to eliminate hatred, wars, and lift the peoples of the world to a spiritual level of existence, where global brotherhood prevails.

Deep within, the Jewish people are tied in an unbreakable connection to the tribes and clans from which they came. Deep within, the descendants of those tribes, which by now have spread throughout the world, feel that connection and will therefore never stop observing and examining the Jews. These descendants carry with them the latent memory of the achievement of their ancient tribespeople, and demand that they will share their secret with them. They demand that the Jews will teach the world how to form that union above hatred that they once formed among themselves.

But the Jews have long forgotten all about their achievement. They, too, have fallen prey to hatred and have become hostile to their own people just as before they united for the first time in antiquity. In such a state, they cannot set an example of unity; they can only project hatred, which they do in abundance. And because of the world’s expectation from them to project unity, the more they hate each other, the more the world hates them and accuses them of causing wars.

Therefore, the ICC, and every international institution, should focus its attention on the unity of Jews among themselves. It should demand that the Jewish state become an example of brotherhood rather than enmity, of cohesion rather than division. Since Jews are connected to the entire world through those long forgotten roots, their connection will reflect on all of humanity and change the atmosphere throughout the world. For this reason, if the ICC wants the Palestinians and the entire world to have a good life, it must pressure the Jews to be Jews once more—united above their hatred—and everything else will follow.
[279435]

“The Benefit In The ICC’s “Unbiased” Investigation Against Israel” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “The Benefit in the ICC’s “Unbiased” Investigation against Israel

Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor in the investigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) into possible “war crimes” against Israel, promised that the investigation “will be conducted independently, impartially and objectively, without fear or favor.” Right. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out, the ICC, which was established to prevent atrocities like the Holocaust from happening again, is now coming after the Jewish state. Instead of genuine impartiality, “It turns a blind eye to Iran, Syria and the other dictatorships that are committing real war crimes left and right,” said Netanyahu. As always, the easiest way to expose antisemitism is to look for double standards, and in this case, it couldn’t be more patent.

If we want to win the world’s favor, we have to stop treating each other with such guile and odium. We have to stop hating one another or the world will not stop hating us.

Yet, anyone who knows me, or who has read my books, The Jewish Choice, and Like a Bundle of Reeds, will not be surprised if I express no grievances against antisemites or the existence of antisemitism. In fact, I fully understand where it is coming from and I treat it as a natural phenomenon and a call to action rather than as an unwarranted accusation against my people.

I am not in the least surprised that the world judges us by a different standard than it judges the rest of the nations. They expect something different from us and judge accordingly. We may state that we are the same as everyone else, that we are no different from any other nation, but no one believes this declaration, and deep down, neither do we.

Instead of complaining about the world’s double standard against the Jews, we should see it as both a compliment and a challenge. They expect us to be more righteous than everyone else, more ethical than everyone else, and when we fail their test, they accuse us of crimes against humanity.

We try to be righteous and ethical but the world does not believe us. It is wrong, of course; no army is more careful with human rights violations than the Israeli army, but no one believes us, and for a good reason: This ethical conduct is unreliable for a very simple reason—the way we treat each other. We first have to learn how to relate to one another, and then the world will listen to our arguments about being virtuous. They see in our treatment of each other a testimony to our wickedness, and they will not believe a word we say in court before we act out who we profess to be.

Let me ask you this: Would you trust someone who you knew was mean to his own brother, stole from his own sister, framed his own parents in order to put his hands on their money and property, and then told you he’s a good person? No, you wouldn’t, and rightly so. This is how the world sees us Jews—as a band of warmongers stealing from each other, cheating on each other, betraying one another, while pretending to be harmless and innocent. In their eyes, we are guilty before the trial at the ICC even started, and it makes no difference what we will say in our defense.

If we want to win the world’s favor, we have to stop treating each other with such guile and odium. We have to stop hating one another or the world will not stop hating us.

They know we are smart; they know we are able; and they know what we have contributed to the world. However, they also know that they cannot trust us because they see how we treat one another. If we want fair treatment anywhere, we must start by doing so among ourselves, and then we will begin to see the world changing its approach toward us.

For more on this topic, read my books The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
[279175]

“Will Colonizing Mars Or The Moon Help Save Humanity?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Will colonizing Mars or the Moon help save humanity?

No. Thinking that colonizing other planets, moons, or any other locations will save humanity fails to take into consideration the root cause of our problems: that human nature, the egoistic will to enjoy at the expense of others, is all that needs to change in order for us to enjoy better lives.

If we send a bunch of people who have undergone no inner change to Mars or the moon, then they will exploit, manipulate and abuse each other over there similarly to how we do so on Earth.

Saving humanity and creating a better life for all people thus requires changing ourselves, not our location.

The essence of our self-transformation is our attitudes to each other. We need to realize that human nature is fundamentally evil because it makes our every desire and thought prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others.

Moreover, such a nature gives rise to exploitative, manipulative and abusive behavior, which can be expected to take place anywhere we go, whether Mars or the moon, if we fail to change our nature to its opposite: prioritizing benefit of others and nature over self-benefit.

Therefore, if we truly wished to save humanity and create a better life for everyone and our future generations, then we would need to focus on implementing a new kind of education: a method of connection that would guide our attitude shift from self-centered to other-centered, egoistic to altruistic, detached to positively connected, divisive to unified, and hateful to loving. Undergoing such a transformation would elevate us to a new level of life that would be balanced with the laws of nature. It would in turn bring about newfound harmony, happiness and confidence all throughout humanity, the likes of which we cannot even imagine today.

Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Photo by Christian Lischka SJ on Unsplash.

Inside My Interview With Larry King

566.01Comment: Larry King, the legendary presenter and television icon, has died at the age of 87. He conducted over 40,000 interviews and was included in The Guinness Book of World Records. In an era when emotional leaders were quick to ask questions, interrupt others, he mostly listened. He asked the question, “Why? What do you think,” and he listened.

This made him stand out from all. Among his interlocutors were all the U.S. Presidents, starting with Nixon, and also Margaret Thatcher, Vladimir Putin, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Mike Tyson, Paul McCartney, and you, Michael Laitman.

At the end of the conversation with you, he suddenly said to the production team: “I want to talk to him more, continue the time.”

My Response: Yes, he knew how to show the interlocutor that he was interviewing him. And he listened and heard. And although at first I did not feel any special interest in me on his part, in just a few minutes he began to change. He began to get used to the situation, he himself began to live in it, to empathize.

Listening is a gift from God. Who knows how to listen nowadays? No one. Even psychologists. The main thing for them is to foist on you what they think, and that’s it. They do not work for internal contact with the patient, with the sick person, with the interlocutor, or with the interviewee. This is not the case today.

Question: So, in principle, the art of listening is the main art?

Answer: Yes. This is what Larry King was famous for. We had nothing pre-assigned—an unexpected meeting. I practically answered the questions that interested him. And in no case as an interviewer, but as a person who wants to understand a little bit about life, what is going on in his family, what is happening in his life, with work, with a view of the world.

He understood me. That is, he did not have such an automatic switch on what only he needed and the rest does not matter, as television and radio hosts usually have. No, he absorbed it all for himself.

Question: What are the main qualities of a leader? To reveal a person, what do you need to be able to do?

Answer: To reveal a person, you must enter into him without need to spin it.

It is not necessary, because you unwind him, and he, therefore, like a child in your arms, is very light, external. This is not his inner essence. It is necessary to do so that a person opens up himself, and in such a way that he begins to open up in everything that he did not even think about, did not imagine, that he would ever be able to speak.

Question: And this happens when the one who asks presents the question and kind of cancels and listens?

Answer: Not only is it canceled, but when he wants to enter into the interlocutor, sympathize, be with him, not just empathize. And even more so not to show that you catch him on something or you spin it on something. With Larry King, I felt that this is a person who is really interested in understanding me.

At that time he had problems with his loved one, who was very sick. He disconnected from it and went into what I was telling him. This captured him more than his personal problems, and that is why he was so interested in me, and he was late for this interview. And he did not want to leave, he held my hand.

I just understood what he needed, that he was going to the hospital right after talking with me, and so on. It was impressive. That is, in the end I interviewed the person. Although this is not my specialty, not my task, I was impressed by him. It is precisely this turn, what he can do. He remained human.
[278603]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/25/21

Related Material:
How To Really Listen To Others?
Contact On An Emotional Level
Learn To Listen To Each Other

Welcome To The Convention!

Dear Friends!
I am very pleased to open the first virtual World Kabbalah Convention, which was previously held annually in Tel Aviv in February.
This convention is a gathering of everyone in whom the desire to learn about the meaning of their life, to reveal the upper force, and to move toward the goal of creation has awakened in their hearts.

More than 7,000 people have already registered for the convention and applications continue to come from those wishing to participate with us in lessons and workshops.

We all exist in a huge ocean of egoistic desire created by the Creator, and the goal of this convention is to establish a special island in it where a new force will rule: the desire to bestow. We ask the Creator to lay this new form within the old form—the embryo of the desire to bestow within the desire to receive pleasure.

The Creator can do this; everything depends only on how much we participate in this action, prepare ourselves for it, ask for it, and pray for it to happen. I hope that during the convention we will be able to practically feel how within our connection with each other while still controlled by egoism, above which we really want to rise, an area is cleared for revelation of the Creator, the desire to bestow. And in this way, we will move toward our unique, eternal, worldwide goal.

This is the only and the most important work entrusted to man in this world: to reveal the upper force and the creature created by it. The goal of creation can only be achieved through our unity. All of us, created as egoists, unite in the desire to create a place between us for revelation of the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love, for each other and from us to the Creator, as the Kabbalists teach: “From love of man one comes to love of the Creator”

And since this is the most sublime, special, holy goal that exists in reality, we feel great joy by the honor granted to us to work on it, to reveal the Creator to the creatures in this world.

We hope that we will be able to reveal the upper force for all creatures and thus fulfill the task of the last generation in which we live. The Creator will be revealed to all the inhabitants of this world and the words of the prophets will come into being: “He Is One and His Name One” for all nations.

Therefore, there is a special joy caused by our unity and the desire to make it fit for the revelation of the Creator in our assembly. All of us, men and women, are participants in this action, and the upper force is included from above.
[278907]
From the World Kabbalah Convention, “Discovering Life In The Ten” 2/25/21 ,“The Joy in the Gathering,” Lesson 1

Related Material:
Convention—Movement Toward The Creator
Convention: Absorbing Others
Impressions From The 2020 Israel Convention

Convention—Movement Toward The Creator

938.04Question: We have a big convention ahead of us and we are currently conducting very intensive mutual activities in the tens. What depends on each and everyone of us? What can each of us do?

Answer: First, we need to prepare for it and at the convention itself we need to feel that I am dissolving in others. Together with them I want to become the vessel that the Creator fills and receives pleasure from us. That is all.

Question: What does the preparation depend on?

Answer: It depends on how much we all together want this to happen. I must be connected to my friends in such a way that my “I” does not exist but only “we.” And then “we” disappears, and we feel only the Creator.

Question: Is this possible?

Answer: We must yearn for it. It is said: “The end of an act is in the preliminary thought.”
[278738]
From KabTV’s “Teacher – Student” 2/7/19

Related Material:
The Ten Is A Cell Of The Spiritual Body
Not By Chance
The Point Where The Creator Is

Making The Senses Merge With The Mind

531.01Question: In the classroom, your students study books of different forms. Some of them are more scientific, for example, The Study of the Ten Sefirot. Others, like The Book of Zohar, are written in more allegorical language. How do they affect a person?

Answer: Differently. It depends on the person. But if he has been studying Kabbalah for a long time, then he starts to see both in a sensory presentation, for example, through The Book of Zohar and in scientific-technical presentation through the The Study of the Ten Sefirot that they are one and the same.

In principle, they simply describe the world. But since a person consists of the heart and the mind, that is, of sensations and analysis, these books are either closer to his sensory state or to the conceptual one. People are divided into these two categories, i.e., they are somewhere in between.

But when a person is engaged in Kabbalah, for him it already merges. Of course, there are states of so-called ascents or descents. Then either physical descriptions or sensory descriptions are more suitable for him.
[278468]
From KabTV’s “Questions about Kabbalistic Books” 10/22/19

Related Material:
A First Book On The Wisdom Of Kabbalah
Adam And His Book The Angel Raziel
A Book From The Depths Of Time

“What Does The Second Commandment Mean?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What does the second commandment mean?

The second commandment, namely, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,” means that everything we can imagine is a derivative of the single upper force. Therefore, we are mistaken if we think that there are forces besides this force, which create, implement or make decisions in our world. In other words, if we perceive forces other than a single force operating in reality, then we should recognize that we are not at the highest degree of attainment.

In order to observe the second commandment, we need to perceive and sense the single force behind everything in our world, all objects, plant life, animate life, and people. If we connect everything we see and feel to a single force positioned behind it all, then we fulfill this commandment.

The prohibition to make an image is due to our inability to portray the single upper force in reality. Similar to how we picture physical forces as vectors in our world, other than drawing an arrow to indicate a direction in which this force acts—i.e., as it is a force of giving, connection, integration and emanation which has no self-interest whatsoever—we cannot depict this force in a picture or an image the way we do with corporeal objects.

Based on the talk “Spiritual States: The Ten Commandments” on December 26, 2019. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Why Do I Hate Myself?

962.1Comment: I am a teacher at higher educational institutions. My methodology is completely based on the ideology of integral education. Very often, after classes, a male or a female student comes to me and starts to pour out their hearts and to talk about all their problems. The most pressing question for them is: “Why do I hate myself?”

My Response: This question arises when our desires do not coincide with our capabilities: I want something huge, much more than I can achieve, and I hate myself because of it. As a rule, this applies primarily to young people.

If we talk about older people, then such a question may appear to them when they start digging into their past: how I offended someone, how I treated my parents, how unfairly I said something to someone, I swore, I shouted. This also gives rise to a certain hatred of oneself, of one’s weaknesses, which a person is not able to overcome. This all creates such sediment that always pours out in self-criticism.

I do not know how justified it is. According to Kabbalah, it is not. Because everything that descends from above comes from the Creator. What has happened until now came down from above, and I could not have acted differently. But what happens from this moment onward depends on me. Therefore, there is no room for hatred.
[278641]
From KabTV’s “Integral World” 13/7/18

Related Material:
Love Yourself
How To Love Yourself?
How Do You Love Yourself?