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“The Rockets Expose The Myth Of Coexistence” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “The Rockets Expose the Myth of Coexistence

The good thing about crises is that they expose the truth. After the Israeli War of Independence, Arabs remained in many places in Israel and became Israeli citizens. Over the years, it seemed as though we’ve learned to live together in peaceful coexistence. It was clear that there is no love between the two populations, and that the Israeli Arabs sympathized with the Palestinians in the West Bank, but they still chose to remain in Israel and lead a full civic life here, work alongside Israelis, trade with Israelis, and benefit from the amenities of a prosperous economy. For many years, it seemed as though the hatred that flared during the War of Independence had subsided thanks to the frequent contact with Israeli Jews. It was a myth. The rockets from Gaza and the riots in Jerusalem exposed the truth: Israeli Arabs identify themselves as Palestinians, and they only waited for a time when the Jewish society in Israel was divided and weak enough for them to expose that they, too, want the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea. For some reason, we enjoy lying to ourselves. We cannot afford this luxury; we should tell ourselves the truth: Nothing has changed since the establishment of the State of Israel. The Arabs, who supported the Nazis in World War II, are just as keen to destroy us now as they have always been.

“The Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which sparks of purity would flow onto the entire human race throughout the world,” to use the words of kabbalist Baal HaSulam. This purity, this unity above the ego, is the meaning of being “a light unto nations.”

We have to understand what Israel stands for in the world. The nation of Israel was “officiated” when descendants of strangers who were often hateful toward each other chose to unite above their enmity. By doing so, under the leadership of Abraham and his lineage, and finally under Moses, they set a precedent showing how people can overcome their egos and unite. “The Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which sparks of purity would flow onto the entire human race throughout the world,” to use the words of kabbalist Baal HaSulam. This purity, this unity above the ego, is the meaning of being “a light unto nations.”

But since human nature is selfish to the core, or as the Torah puts it, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21), Israel’s method of achieving peace among sworn enemies has put it on a collision course with the rest of humanity. In truth, no division is greater or deeper than the division between Israel and the rest of the world, and no hatred is more intense. The chasm between Israel and the nations is a projection of the chasm between the nature of giving and unity and the nature of receiving and selfishness. There is no compromise; in the end, only one will remain.

When Israel are united, they are powerful enough to deter any enemy. In fact, a united people of Israel has no enemies since the light of unity it emits attracts the nations toward it to learn how they, too, can unite. The book Sifrey Devarim (Item 354) writes that in antiquity, in times when Israel were united, people from the nations of the world would “go up to Jerusalem and see Israel … and say, ‘It is becoming to cling only to this nation.’”

Alas, today we are anything but united. And when we are disunited, we are powerless, and the world feels our weakness and wishes to seize the moment and destroy us. When we are disconnected from our unity, our anchor of strength, the ego takes over the world and wishes to destroy its only enemy: the people of Israel. “Israel will be a holy congregation and one association, as one man with one heart. Then, when unity restores Israel as before, Satan will have no place in which to place error and external forces,” writes the book Shem MiShmuel. “When they are as one man with one heart,” it continues, “they are as a fortified wall against the forces of evil.” However, “If there is division among them,” writes the book Masechet Derech Eretz Zutah, “it is said about them (Hosea 10:2), ‘Their heart is divided; now they will bear their guilt.’”

This is what is happening today. We are suffering the consequences of the baseless hatred among us, and the whip is our neighbors. Our own disunity is the instigator of their violence, and the only fire extinguisher we have is our solidarity, our care for one another. If we can rise above the chasms in the Israeli society, we will prosper more than any other nation. If we do not, we will bear our guilt.

“What Is The Role Of The Ten Commandments Today?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What is the role of the ten commandments today?

The ten commandments represent desires to positively connect among each other and with our common source.

The Giving of the Torah takes place at the foot of Mount Sinai after the people of Israel accept the condition of Arvut (mutual guarantee)—to be united “as one man with one heart.”

Mount Sinai represents an enormous amount of hatred (“Sinai” stemming from the Hebrew word for “hatred” [“Sinah”]), rooted in our egoistic self-centered quality. We can rise above the immense ego and hatred, which divides us from each other and causes all the world’s ills, if we follow a single small desire that wishes only to love, bestow and positively connect. That small desire is called a “point in the heart” in the wisdom of Kabbalah: a tiny desire for spirituality within our “heart,” which represents the totality of our egoistic desires. In the Bible, this point is called “Moses,” which in Hebrew is “Moshe,” since this point “attracts” or “pulls” (“Moshech” in Hebrew) us out of our divisive ego and into the harmonious spiritual quality of love, bestowal and positive connection.

Mount Sinai is a gigantic amount of ego and hatred, similar to the Tower of Babel, but bigger because it is on a later degree of egoistic growth. The people of Israel standing at the bottom of Mount Sinai means that we are ready to rise above our divisive ego in order to unite. In other words, we agree to unite parts of our individual egos into one big mass, and not fear it even though it is a huge amount of hatred, because our focus is entirely on longing to positively connect with a mutual love and care for one another above our egoistic drives that itch away at us, which make us want to do everything but to connect in such a way.

When we unite in such a way, we form a demand for the revelation of the spiritual quality—love and bestowal—in our unity. The tendency to unite forms a true need for the spiritual quality of love and bestowal to dwell among us, what in the wisdom of Kabbalah is called a “Kli” (“vessel/tool/receptacle”) for spirituality. That is, the more we direct ourselves at connecting to each other, the more we discover our ego resisting connection, and this dual-motion eventually leads us to a true need for the spiritual quality of love and bestowal to dwell in our connection, since we increasingly find that without such a force, our ego forever blocks us off from each other. It is written that “From the love of the created beings, we come to love of the Creator.” We thus accept the condition of “Love your neighbor as yourself” and by doing so, discover the laws of spiritual connection that the ten commandments describe.

Based on the first part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on June 3, 2014, Shamati #66 “The Giving of the Torah.”
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

The Mystery Of The Unification Of The Masculine And Feminine, Part 6

232.06Learning to Control the Ego

Question: How does Kabbalah recommend resolving the contradictions between us?

Answer: Nature does not want to solve the contradictions, but actually quite the opposite, it wants to put us in such conflicts and contradictions that we will not be able to resolve and then we will either destroy each other or ascend to the next level above our nature.

Nature pressures us in a very clear, systematic, serious manner, and shows us that we will not be able to continue to exist egoistically. Our ego manages us and it is not to our benefit. We must learn how to manage it.

The Creator, who has created us as egoists and manages our fate, seemingly says: “It is time to leave the nest. I want you to manage yourselves, to be in charge of your own life, of your own fate. You must begin to control your ego, and I am giving you this opportunity. But in order to do so, you need to perfectly restore the connection with Me because I am the positive connection, and you must control the ego with the help of this connection.”

What does it mean to control the ego? To restrict it, to work with it not so that it awakens desires in us, but actually purposefully. This means that from this moment onward, I want to move forward so that I can manage myself. Not that the Creator should manage me, but that I should manage myself.

Each of us can picture what it means to leave the parents’ home. A time comes when we leave our parents and start gradually building our life. It takes time. On one hand we want to be free, but on the other hand, it is good when our parents take care of us.

Thus, leaving the parents is unpleasant: we either leave to another town, go to university, join the army, or something else happens in our lives. But generally speaking, it is a breakaway.

This is the reason why the Creator seemingly says, “You have grown, you have become detached, and now you need to start working on yourselves independently.” This work is called the work of the Creator when we can take both controlling forces from the Creator, the egoistic force and the altruistic force, and start managing ourselves like with two reins.

But what does it mean to manage ourselves? Suppose I sit in a carriage holding the reins and there is a horse in front of me (my ego) and I control it. The human being in me controls the beast in me. Unfortunately, I am not very successful in it. I forget, and I don’t really want it.

In principle, the Creator leads us to that. You see, a man is this concept when I want to ascend above the beast in me and resemble the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/3/19

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Why Cancer Affects Everyone

510.01Question: Humanity has been living with cancer for many, many centuries. Even ancient Egyptian papyrus from the 7th century BC describe breast cancer and so on. Humanity is always fighting this disease. We have invented chemotherapy, created all sorts of drugs, and still, this disease is defeating us.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that the cancer cell is unique, and in general, cancer is different for everyone. Thus, the approach should be very individual with each patient. What do the Kabbalists say about this disease, and how do we break free of it?

Answer: It is a violation of the program in the functioning of a cell or of an organ in a human or animal body. Cells and organs experience disruption. It is like in a computer, for example, when there is a failure, and it is already doing who knows what and destroys itself.

Only from the point of view of Kabbalah, we do not say a failure occurs and it destroys itself. A failure occurs, and everything goes according to a different plan. It is still going according to a plan, they are not some completely random forces. There is no such thing as random in nature. In nature, everything is predetermined, everything is totally interconnected. Therefore, cancer is a violation of the correct, healthy program of the existence of protein cells.

The right, healthy program of existence is when the body functions in order to lead its master, the owner of the body, to the right connection with others and to unite, to reveal a common unifying force through it.

Since the master is not engaged in the correct assembly of these cells, there is a disruption between them such that they begin to multiply incorrectly among themselves.

Question: What is the proper development of the cell?

Answer: It is in proper care between themselves.

Question: Does it stop caring about other cells and care only about itself and start destroying everything around it including itself?

Answer: Yes. It is a purely egoistic attitude to the environment, to its surroundings, because it cannot find the correct positive interaction with it.

Question: So, in fact, can you call the relationships between us, between people, cancerous?

Answer: Of course!

Question: Meaning that we live in a world afflicted by this disease?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And the same thing is happening within us?

Answer: Absolutely the same processes.

Question: What is the solution, what is the cure?

Answer: To realize what has gone wrong in the development of cells, in the wrong relationships between us, in the wrong human relationships between ourselves, and to correct the way we relate to each other.

And we will see almost immediately according to the changes between us toward good relationships, the correct interaction between malignant cells and tissues.

Question: Can a person break free of this disease by himself?

Answer: There may be a chance, possibly. But only through very serious work on oneself and others. If one is even allowed to do so. The fact is that cancer is actually an egoistic tumor of all of humanity. Therefore, it can affect people who are completely unselfish by their nature, by their character. They are affected also.

Question: It is as if reflected from all of humanity onto them, right?

Answer: Yes. And in general, in this respect, we misunderstand nature. Because nature does affect people who, perhaps, are the least likely to relate to such evil manifestations toward each other.

Comment: So the righteous can be the first to suffer.

My Response: True.

Question: Why?

Answer: Well, because they are above the others and, therefore, they get the first blow.

Question: It is a shame.

Answer: No, it is not a shame. This is a universal law of nature, thus, we need to think about everyone.

Comment: You once said that when a person feels bad or is gravely ill, if he finds the strength not to think about himself but to think about others, by doing so he can conquer the illness.

My Response: It can defeat the disease but, in our time, when everything is so tied and interconnected, it is very difficult.

Question: What is your prescription?

Answer: You should still think about others. This is the surest and the greatest remedy for such an evil egoistic disease as cancer.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/22/21

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How To Beat Drugs?

273.01Comment: An article “America decriminalizes heroin: the war on drugs is lost” in EADaily.com contends that the 1971 war on drugs declared by Nixon seems to be completely lost.

In America, marijuana is legal almost everywhere. And in the state of Oregon, a law partially allowing the use of hard drugs has been passed. They claim the advantages of this are huge.  “In FY2020, marijuana tax revenues to the Oregon treasury increased 30% from the previous year to $ 133 million, up 545% from the 2016 cannabis tax collection.

Interestingly, opinions are divided. Opponents claim that the health threat to young Americans cannot be justified by any commercial gain.

“But in response to all the arguments presented, the advocates of legalization say that they regret the stupid choice that compatriots can make in favor of drugs, but free will and the goals of profitability should prevail in this matter.”

My Response: Humanity has had a craving for drugs throughout its history. Humanity needs to invent something that would make its existence easier. Otherwise, it is hard to live.

With our brains today we have developed to the extent that everyone begins to ask themselves: “Why is all of this? And what is all this for? Do I need it?”

This is called the last generation. The time has come when such questions begin to be raised, they are our inner desires and people demand an answer to them.

Question: And when there is no answer, then a person wants to forget himself?

Answer: Then you have to do something. Drunkenness and, of course, drug abuse will rise.

Question: Is there any way out of this? Will prohibition help?

Answer: No bans will help. If it comes from man’s needs, he will drink, smoke, sniff, and swallow anything anyway.

Question: Even if there are laws to imprison, to execute?

Answer: They will bypass these laws. As a result, these laws will be canceled because you cannot jail everyone. Everyone you put in jail costs the state a lot of money.

Question: So where are we going and where should we end up? What would you say about this?

Answer: I would say that people should be educated and given the opportunity to reveal the meaning of life, the meaning of existence. Then a person will not have to run away anywhere. He will, on the contrary, strive to replace running away from life with striving for a different life.

Question: That is, then he will even be afraid to escape into something that will divert him or put him to sleep?

Answer: Of course, because he is losing eternity.

We are moving toward the fact that people are starting to ask themselves about this and they will eventually move from such questions to reality.

A person will fully reveal this question: “What do I live for?” And one will be able to find the answer to it in this life, in this world.

Proceeding from this life, from this world, he will find the answer. He will reveal the real, true world that stands behind our world, that controls it and fills it. And then he will somehow connect with the system that controls our world. He will begin to understand that everything that he is experiencing now leads him to a truly high goal. He will then understand why he was led in this way, what he was led to, and he will justify it.

Question: What will fill a person? How will he feel it?

Answer: His desire is to find meaning in his existence. And he will discover this meaning. And then he will understand why this desire has been ripening in him for so long, for so many years, maybe hundreds of years, gradually, step by step in the cycles of life, and he will justify all this.

Question: Will he feel that he is standing in front of absolute warmth, love, and kindness?

Answer: Yes. And truth. There is something we receive in the mind and something we receive in the heart. Therefore, there must be a filling in both of them.

We live in a time when we can approach this.

Question: But do you have the acute feeling that we are approaching this?

Answer: Absolutely! But I would like it to happen as soon as possible.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/22/21

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From Discrete Comprehension To Analog

281.01Question: Can we say that individual consciousness functions at a discrete level? Is this more or less our world?

Answer: By changing myself at a discrete level, I receive additional discrete portions of information to this extent. As a result, this portioned information gives me a feeling of a field, not discrete, but analogous. The discrete level is like the steps of comprehension, and the comprehension itself is analogous when I feel this field by more and more, larger circles.

Therefore, if we talk about a person, then he enters this step by step, and if we talk about the very structure of the field—if it is possible at all to talk about what exists outside of us—then it is not discrete, but analogous.

Question: That is, my capabilities are discrete. Due to the fact that this field, as it were, enters me, then merging with it, I feel it as analog. Does it turn out that the light and the Kli (the vessel of the soul) are already together?

Answer: Yes because you open this field to the extent of your similarity to it. Therefore, there are no barriers between you and it.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 3/29/19

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Why Was A Small Part Of The Book Of Zohar Revealed?

65Comment: Initially, The Book of Zohar was a commentary on the entire Torah, the entire Tanakh, and included everything.

My Response: Indeed, The Zohar commentary was written on the Torah, Prophets, and Holy Scriptures—on all three books, which are abbreviated as Tanakh. But only ten percent of this book has come down to us.

Why is the commentary only on the Torah preserved? I have not found an answer to this question anywhere. I think that for our generation, perhaps, more is not necessary.

Yet why did the authors of The Book of Zohar work so hard if after writing it, it was immediately hidden and only now a small part of it was revealed?

I think that because they wrote this book together, they were correcting the connection between the souls. After all, The Zohar is a whole system of connecting souls, like a program in a computer. When you write it you turn on this machine and the computer starts working in a completely different way according to its program.

According to this program, the authors of The Book Zohar launched a common connection of souls. Today, we only need ten percent of it to include ourselves in this program, in this right community.

On the other hand, I do not rule out the possibility that the remaining ninety percent will suddenly also be revealed, and we will find them somewhere, like the Qumran finds.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #12

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What Is The Expression Of True Freedom?

744Question: What is the true freedom of a person expressed in?

Answer: In rising above one’s egoistic nature.

When you rise above egoism, you begin to feel everything that is beyond the ego, meaning, beyond you, beyond what you are feeling now—after all, both you and your current universe are imprinted in your egoism—all this completely disappears and is replaced with an entirely different picture of the world.
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From KabTV’s “Challenges of the XXI century. Introduction” 4/24/19

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Attainment: From A Discrete To An Analog Picture

962.3Question: Reality is not what appears to us outside of us but what is inside us. It turns out that reality is a fraction of our consciousness?

Answer: Yes. Everything that is inside us, in our consciousness, in our comprehension—this is reality.

Gradually, we begin to feel what can be outside of this reality: the upper, absolutely amorphous light.

But we do not attain it because it is not calibrated in any way. After all, we are not moving in an analog system but in a discrete one, and we must understand everything upon the difference between this and that, this and that.

This means, we are obliged to graduate everything, integrate it within us, and then make an analog picture from an abstract one. But it should still be composed of pixels.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 3/29/19

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