Audio Version Of The Blog – 3/24/21

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Election Day

271Election Day is a very important event. After all, the choice of the people is taken into account by the upper governance, like a prayer raised in the expression of people’s desire. Therefore, it is our duty to participate in the elections.

Let everyone make their own calculation about who to vote for: the main thing is that one knows that this is a very serious action and that the future of the people of Israel and the whole world depends on his choice.

Beware of taking the election lightly, because it is considered a spiritual action. Therefore, first of all, it is our duty to vote, and second, to be accountable for the choice we made. This is very important.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 3/22/21, “Pesach (Passover)”

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“When It Comes To Vaccines – There Is No Union In The European Union” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “When It Comes to Vaccines – There Is No Union in the European Union

It’s hard to describe the European Union Covid-19 vaccines fiasco better than James McAuley did it in his most recent column on The Washington Post: “Imagine being in the middle of the greatest public health crisis in a century,” he writes, “and finally, thanks to the ingenuity of science, you get the tools to end that crisis — but, out of nowhere, you decide you won’t use them. Welcome to the European Union, where political leaders dwell in mansions of bureaucratic incompetence and political arrogance as a third wave of covid-19 cases threatens the continent and new variants emerge.” Later in the column, McAuley asks what it will take “before the E.U. vaccinates its citizens as if their lives were on the line?”

Covid-19 is just the first and mildest blow; many more are en route. The first blow has claimed millions of lives. The looming blows will claim many more. As long as we make egoism our king, life will punish us, and the ego will not let us recover. Blow after blow, humanity will collapse under the pain until we all realize that our real enemy is not nature, which inflicts such blows as Covid, but our own egos, which do not let us overcome them easily and quickly.

McAuley offers many reasons that could result in such a fiasco, but I think the truth is plain and simple: It is a struggle led by nothing more than big egos that care for nothing but their own prestige. When has there been union in the European Union? Never! From its very beginning, there have been nothing but power struggles, exploitation, and abandonment of member states in need. (Remember Greece in the 2008 Financial Crisis or Italy in the first wave of the pandemic?) When these come alongside lofty statements that “Building a fair and well-functioning society is a political priority for the European Union,” to quote the EU Science Hub, or a page that the EU titled “European solidarity in action,” to document (the few) examples of solidarity in Europe in facing the Covid-19 crisis, one can’t help but feel deep mistrust in the sincerity of the leaders of the EU.

I’ve said it so many times before: An organization that is founded on egoism cannot last, and the longer it does last, the more the people under its influence suffer until they break it up. All that the EU bureaucrats manage to do, and in this they excel, is make the rich and powerful people on top, even richer and more powerful.

“They shall sow the wind, and they shall harvest a storm,” said Prophet Hosea (8:7). Indeed, the spirit of alienation and exploitation that has pervaded the EU from its onset killed every chance of solidarity and is now costing the lives of thousands of Europeans every day while all of the developed countries are already emerging from the pandemic. When you do not nurture solidarity, you cannot expect to have it at a time of need.

Covid-19 is just the first and mildest blow; many more are en route. The first blow has claimed millions of lives. The looming blows will claim many more. As long as we make egoism our king, life will punish us, and the ego will not let us recover. Blow after blow, humanity will collapse under the pain until we all realize that our real enemy is not nature, which inflicts such blows as Covid, but our own egos, which do not let us overcome them easily and quickly.

In fact, if for each blow we would bolster our unity, we would achieve such union in human society that we would secure a good life for every person on the planet. We are already capable of it, but we have no desire for it since no one gets the credit, and without a trophy for the ego, there is no motivation to exert for it. At the same time, there is strong motivation to prevent anyone else from helping humanity so that no one else will get the credit.

Until we learn to forge true solidarity, we will not have a good life on this planet. Be it a fourth wave of Covid, extreme weather of unprecedented intensity, or some other ploy that nature might pull, we will be forced into greater and greater discomfort and pain until we surrender and dethrone our egos.

“World Happiness Report – Perceived Happiness Is Not Happiness” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “World Happiness Report – Perceived Happiness Is Not Happiness

According to the latest World Happiness Report (WHR), the Finnish are the happiest people in the world, and the people of Afghanistan are the most unhappy. Also, the top four countries on the list are from Northern Europe, with the Netherlands at number five. This is interesting because if these countries have the best life on the planet, why are they not flooded with immigrants? Is it because people from poor countries migrate to richer countries as a first step toward the countries that can offer the happiest life? Probably not, since the happiest countries are not that high up on the popularity scale. Apparently, what makes one person happy isn’t what makes another person happy. There is a big difference between what we perceive as happiness and what happiness really is.

There is no miracle here; it’s a psychological shift. Instead of focusing on our own desires, we need to focus on the desires of others, and they on ours. This is all it takes to change the world and make all of us, every person in the world, truly eternally happy. Then, we will not need reports to tell us whether or not we are happy; we would know for ourselves.

The WHR surveyed several factors in order to determine which nation is the happiest. Among them are GDP (a country’s economic output), income inequality, the freedom to make life choices, trust and the ability to count on others, confidence in public institutions, healthy life expectancy, well-being, and generosity. It seems plausible that such factors would play a big part in determining people’s happiness, but in truth, they overlook a key factor without which the whole project is meaningless: people’s expectations, namely what they perceive as happiness, as opposed to what the composers of the survey perceive it.

For example, if people aren’t bothered by income inequality, it will not make them happy if they have more than others, or unhappy if they have less. The same goes for trust: If a person settles for being able to trust his or her family members, and doesn’t expect anything more, then even if a country is ranked among the most corrupt in the world, it will not make the country’s people any more miserable. Apparently, the survey was conceived by Western minds and ranks countries’ happiness by what Western minds consider important for happiness. But Western minds aren’t the objective truth.

The truth is that there is no objective truth; you cannot compare people’s happiness—not between countries or between eras. That said, individually, people can determine if they are happy or not. We can measure our happiness, grade it, compare it to previous stages in our lives, and plan how to make ourselves happier because inside we know what makes us happy: Simply stated, we are happy when we get what we want. When our desires are satisfied, we feel happy. Or, perhaps I should rephrase it: We feel content.

Regrettably, we are never content, nor can we be. Our sages already said in the Midrash (Kohelet Rabbah): “One does not leave the world with half of one’s wishes in one’s hand, for one who has one hundred wants two hundred; one who has two hundred wants four hundred.” In other words, human nature itself denies our contentment. If we were content with what we had, we would not have had civilization because we would feel no urge to improve our lives. As a result, we wouldn’t have technology, and we wouldn’t have noble social ideals about what makes people happy. So by the WHR’s own standards, we wouldn’t be happy. But then, if we didn’t want those things that are said to make us happy in the first place, why would not having them make us unhappy?

The apparent catch is resolved if we understand not what makes us content, but what makes us truly happy. If you’ve ever observed a mother to a newborn baby, you know what it is: the pleasure of pleasing others! Even when the baby is sound asleep, tucked in her blanket and her belly full, her mother still watches her, needlessly fixes her blanket and smiles. No person is happier than a mother satisfying her baby’s needs.

If we strove to please the desires of others the way mothers strive to please their babies, and others strove to do the same for us, everyone would be happy. We would have a never ending pool of desires to please, everyone’s personal needs would always be met to the fullest, and everyone would always be happily pleasing others. There is truly no end to the happiness that such a state of mind can induce.

There is no miracle here; it’s a psychological shift. Instead of focusing on our own desires, we need to focus on the desires of others, and they on ours. This is all it takes to change the world and make all of us, every person in the world, truly eternally happy. Then, we will not need reports to tell us whether or not we are happy; we would know for ourselves.
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“Envy – How To Rein In The Monster” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Envy – How to Rein In the Monster

As Israel is opening up malls and commerce is returning to full speed, the ailments of Western society are reappearing as though we’ve never had Covid. High-end stores are so crammed that people are standing in long lines outside of them hoping to spend a lot of money on posh accessories. You’d think that the coronavirus would have cured us of these ills, but it has done nothing of the kind. On the contrary, it seems as though people are shopping with vengeance.

People value what they see that others value. They buy things that others appreciate because it makes other people jealous. If we promote other values, people will naturally shift to showing off that they excel in those other values, for the exact same purpose of arousing other people’s envy. If we showed admiration to people who contribute to unity, solidarity, and cohesion in society, many people would want to be that way.

But why are they shopping in the first place? Do they really need new accessories? Probably not. In most cases, they are shopping to show that they shopped; that is the only reason they need. People are shopping, especially when it comes to elite fashion, in order to show that they have lots of money and make other people jealous. Were it not for jealousy, they wouldn’t bother spending hours in crammed lines and crowded shops for the questionable fun of blowing their salaries of high-end status symbols they don’t need, and possibly don’t even like.

Nevertheless, I’m happy that they’re so eager to buy. The more intensely they spend, the quicker they’ll understand that there is no real satisfaction in buying stuff that they don’t need, and the impression they make on others doesn’t make them really happy, unless you consider glee at having what others don’t a real form of happiness.

There is something more that we can do to accelerate the transition to more lasting happiness: People value what they see that others value. They buy things that others appreciate because it makes other people jealous. If we promote other values, people will naturally shift to showing off that they excel in those other values, for the exact same purpose of arousing other people’s envy. If we showed admiration to people who contribute to unity, solidarity, and cohesion in society, many people would want to be that way. They would act as if they’re kind and caring even if they aren’t, simply in order to arouse envy or not to feel inferior because they are uncaring. Other people wouldn’t know who is genuinely caring and who is not, and the impression they would get would be that everyone is like that. This would make them behave similarly, and very quickly, all of society will transform itself.

We mustn’t underestimate the power of envy; it is the most powerful force in human nature. We only need to rein it in, to direct it toward a positive direction, and our way to mending the ills of society is paved. And the sooner we start working on it, the better.
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“The Exodus From Egypt And The Exit From The Pandemic” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “The Exodus from Egypt and the Exit from the Pandemic

On Passover night, traditionally everyone sits with their loved ones at a festive table to read about freedom and the sufferings of slavery and plagues, and the desire for liberation. For a second consecutive year in the US, and most communities around the world, many will celebrate virtually since the pandemic is not behind us yet. So when we ask ourselves, “Ma nishtana?” (What has changed?), an inner reflection about what makes this night different from all others, we might need to scrutinize why we are still enduring painful situations and how we can be liberated from them once and for all.

Passover, from the Hebrew “Pesach,” means passage. It symbolizes the transition from the dominance of Pharaoh, our egoism, the exploitation of others for our own sake, into a state of love and bestowal when a new desire for positive social connection emerges. This desire is called “Moses,” from the word “moshech” (pulling), because he is the one who pulls Israel from exile, meaning from the controlling ego.

Passover, from the Hebrew “Pesach,” means passage. It symbolizes the transition from the dominance of Pharaoh, our egoism, the exploitation of others for our own sake, into a state of love and bestowal when a new desire for positive social connection emerges. This desire is called “Moses,” from the word “moshech” (pulling), because he is the one who pulls Israel from exile, meaning from the controlling ego. In fact, the holiday of Passover describes an inner process of contradicting forces interacting with each other until the period of intensifying division eventually leads to a completely different approach of consideration for others.

Such a critically reflective period has been unleashed by the COVID-19 outbreak. It surged as a mirror to look at ourselves and discover how dependent we are on each other and how opposite we have been from the desirable state of mutual care. It indicates that we have nowhere to go, so we better sit down and do nothing but improve our relationships with those close to us—even if they are not in a physical proximity—and within society.

Why is this so important? It is essential because the root cause of every problem is our egoistic desire to enjoy only for ourselves in complete disregard of others. And if I care about others, it is only to the extent that it relates to me, that I depend on them. As a result of this approach, after such an extended period, we have not been able to create the necessary conditions to get out of the pandemic.

The Haggadah we recite during the traditional Seder table includes the phrase “we were slaves” of Pharaoh and couldn’t escape by ourselves. Today we are also enslaved to our evil inclination, which sparks disputes between us and creates lack of balance in all levels of nature, which causes illnesses, despair, and afflictions. The liberation from such a state is the true exit from Egypt, the exit from the control of our egoistic desires.

When will we be set free? When we are free of hatred and begin to feel that our health and good future hangs on the positive relationships between us. When we start thinking well of others, embrace them, and desire to benefit them. It is possible to achieve this goal if we ask the upper force, the Creator, to pull us out from Egypt with a strong but caring hand, and to pass us all over from a state of divisiveness, disregard, and coldness in modern society, to one of love, warmth, and cooperation.

I wish you all a happy Passover!
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Egyptian Plagues: Livestock Pestilence

527.02Question: The fifth Egyptian plague is livestock pestilence. What kind of livestock is this about if we are talking about the inner state of a person?

Answer: It is about different levels of desire. Livestock represents our animalistic desires. This blow is felt like a manifestation of my egoism, which I did not know about before and as the realization that I cannot use it in any way.

There are ten desires in man that go from Malchut to Keter, the ten Sefirot, in which the egoistic foundations of these desires are manifested. When a person is given the realization that he cannot use these properties for bestowal, he understands that he will not be able to feel spiritual life in them.

Question: Can we say that all plagues go from external desires to more internal ones? For example, the sixth plague is blisters and boils that appear on man’s body and not on the livestock.

Answer: Yes. Desires are manifested from external, distant from a person, to those closer to him.

These desires of a man in relation to himself, to the Creator, to other people, show him, first of all, that they cannot be used. In any form, each of them demonstrates that it cannot be used for the sake of bestowal, and therefore, if they manifest in a person, he will not be able to leave Egypt with them and enter the spiritual world.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/30/20

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How To Win In Any Situation

506.1Question: Once, a European student, boxing and French wrestling world champion came to an old martial arts teacher and asked: “What can you teach me?”

The old master said: “Imagine that you are walking around the city and accidentally wander into a street where several thugs are waiting for you who want to rob you and break your ribs.” The student says: “And you will teach me tricks on how to defeat them?” “No, I will teach you not to go there.”

The question is: If you are strong, do you go forward to defeat your enemies, or do you walk away from them? What will you do? We face all kinds of dangers today. Someone walks into danger, and they say he is brave. Someone avoids it, he is a coward. How should a person behave?

Answer: There are people who like to get involved in all sorts of dangerous games, squabbles, and confrontations. For them, this very situation, this very event gives such a thrill that for this, they believe, one must live. All these parties, all this is absolutely useless.

And there are people who do not want this; they are interested in results. If I can achieve what I need without getting involved in any explanations and general relationships with these nonentities that are spinning in all these get-togethers, then why should I do it?

The attitude should be as follows: closer to the goal and away from all these confrontations. They will force you, they will glue you to their societies, and you will have to answer them. They will stick to you and not let go. They will make you spin in their circles. You absolutely don’t need it. You will get confused along the way and you will not reach the goal.

So, best of all, you do not need these arts to fight opponents. Absolutely! You do not need any knowledge of any techniques there. You need to know how you can achieve this goal in a short, simple way. This is usually done by simulating the state that you want to achieve.

Question: How can you anyway get around this street? Isn’t it actually this wisdom one must learn to get around?

Answer: For what purpose do you go there or go around, or go anywhere?

Comment: The goal is maybe simply to defeat this bandit or this politician.

My Response: That is another matter. Then you have to go there and do something there.

And if your goal is not for men but for making some kind of change in nature—the nature of society or the state, then you do not need all kinds of petty gangster squabbles.

Question: What goal should man still have so that he does not engage in these confrontations at all, so that he understands that all this is nonsense?

Answer: If we are talking about a pure goal, then I must set it up for myself and realize that it can be achieved only with the help of a higher force. And so, I must go to the area where this higher force operates, establish contact with it, and negotiate with it so that it does what is needed.

Enter not selfish but altruistic areas. And I must find contact with the Creator there and convince Him, beg Him, that it is necessary to change humanity.

Question: And what kind of tricks are there in the altruistic area?

Answer: The opposite is true. It is not egoism with which I enter and try to show everyone how cool I am, but altruism, when I enter and show everyone how much I can nullify myself for the sake of others.

Question: Is this called real courage?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: And you also go there to fight? Is this a fight too?

Answer: There will be another battle here: you must fight with yourself. Because you feel that your whole nature is against it.

Remark: That is, the main thing is to master the techniques of fighting yourself and not someone else?

Answer: And this is not so far away.

Question: Will man come to this?

Answer: It will come.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/15/21

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Is It Possible To Explore Our Consciousness?

228Comment: In science, there is great confusion between consciousness, reason, and intellect. Everything is piled into one heap.

My Response: Let’s try to understand these definitions. Frankly speaking, I never did this intentionally. I found my teacher at a young age, and he “bought” me with an absolutely clear, systematic approach to everything.

Comment: The problem is that for hundreds of years we have made almost no progress on this issue. Descartes, for example, searched for the soul in the brain, found the pineal gland, and said “This is the soul.” And today it is the same: consciousness is sought after in the brain.

Surprisingly, it seems that exactly in these areas there is great progress, there is tomography, a large number of tools, but we have not made any progress.

My Response: The fact is that these devices will not be able to give us any impression about the soul, about consciousness, nor about the mind.

Comment: Unfortunately, scientists continue their research in this direction. Some of them say, “Consciousness research is a waste of time.” Others feel that they have reached a dead end and can do nothing. Yet, all of them still continue to cling to a purely materialistic approach.

My Response: Kabbalah also deals with pure materialism. It says, “It is necessary to find a way to rise above our nature. Our entire nature is egoism. We must try to rise above it.”

Do we have this opportunity or not? Kabbalah says that we have it, and accordingly it gives some tools, some opportunities.

On one hand, this is, in principle, a clear, sober, materialistic approach. On the other hand, it goes against our nature, our egoistic desires. Therefore, scientists do not need it.

Within the framework of our nature, scientists agree to anything because there is a visible benefit in the place where you invest. They are willing to take risks and sacrifice themselves, but they understand this in their mind at the same level. There are well-known examples of when scientists really sacrificed their lives in dangerous experiments.

However, the average person cannot understand what Kabbalah offers. Here we need a different atmosphere, a different laboratory. Here you yourself are the laboratory.

How can we talk about the mind if we do not try to rise above it?! How can we study it?! This is clear to anyone: If I need to research something, I need to be at least a small step higher than this object of research. It is impossible to do anything without exiting yourself. Therefore, I agree with those who say that this is beyond their control.

Without the auxiliary tool that Kabbalah offers,—to extract from the surrounding world, from the field surrounding us, a force that is opposite to our nature, and make it change us, raise us above our nature to the next level—it is impossible to explore our current degree. Then we will know what the mind is and what consciousness is. It will be possible for anyone.

In the meantime, we just have to accept without proof that there is such a force that can take us to the next degree. Then from this degree, we will explore our consciousness and our mind.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 1/3/19

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Going Through This World

712.03Question: To explore spiritual reality, did you begin to understand corporeal process, their meaning and sources, at a completely different level?

Answer: You begin to understand Kabbalistic sources. I also understood corporeal sources this way, since I have a good healthy human mind. I am not Einstein, of course, but I graduated from school and university successfully, I have a doctorate, and I have engaged in different interesting research. But this has nothing to do with the wisdom of Kabbalah.

When you begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, a change takes place inside you.

When engaging in ordinary science a person attains and absorbs different facts that simply accumulate inside him. But when one engages in the wisdom of Kabbalah the absorption of the Kabbalistic knowledge changes a person.

Question: Does this mean that a person has a different analysis, for example, could his perspective of human history change?

Answer: Even an ordinary person’s perspective of human history can change when he engages in it. But in spirituality it is the person himself who changes. Proceeding from this, one begins to perceive, feel, and absorb everything that exists in himself in accordance with his new level. Instead of the property of receiving, it acquires the property of bestowal.

In this new property of bestowal, which manifests more and more in him, he begins to see the world in a different way: end-to-end, outside of time, space, and motion. He begins to look at the world precisely from the point of view of ever greater compactness, the mutual dependence of all the elements of creation, until he passes from matter to its inner quality and passes through this world.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 1/20/19

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