Audio Version Of The Blog – 5/14/21

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“The Illusion Of Coexistence” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “The Illusion of Coexistence

Israeli cities that were once considered symbols of Jewish-Arab coexistence are on fire. Riots and lynchings perpetrated by both sides have shattered what were perceived as peaceful neighborhoods. The large Israeli cities Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, Acre, and Lod, burn in the ongoing barrage of thousands of missiles by Hamas terrorists targeting Israeli populations and the following military response in Gaza. Why is the bridge between both communities being consumed by flames of anger? Because there really was no such bridge or real coexistence. It has never been between us.

We need to learn how to create a true friendly existence, how to build it and consistently nurture it. We need mutual desire to achieve it, otherwise it will not work. It requires readiness and a consensual decision that we are not prepared to continue in this constant life of conflict and war.

There were cops and guards who did not let resentment flare up and it worked to a certain extent until now, but this safety valve was simply released and exploded.

We like to whitewash or paint reality pink, but there is hatred toward us on the part of the Arabs, as there always has been. We need to talk about it, admit it, and understand that it is not accidental; we need to realize what the reason for it is. Only in this way will we be able to arrange a fundamentally corrected mutual relationship with the Arabs without clouding the truth with pretty tales and naive exclamations like, “Oh, how did that happen? After all, we got along with each other so nicely!”

We need to learn how to create a true friendly existence, how to build it and consistently nurture it. We need mutual desire to achieve it, otherwise it will not work. It requires readiness and a consensual decision that we are not prepared to continue in this constant life of conflict and war.

Our haters feel deep inside that we interfere with them, like a speck of grit in the eye that they must get rid of because it is unbearable. This is how they feel about us, like we are the cause of all their suffering. Even the small quarrels between them that have nothing to do with us, they still point at us to blame. And it is not just about our cousins in the mixed neighborhoods, but about all the citizens of the world.

In the depths of their hearts, Arabs and non-Arabs feel that we are the source of all their problems, even the most private ones. If they could, they would have killed us a long time ago, only they could not. Not because we are so smart and powerful, but because precisely from the small point called Israel something new needs to spread to humanity, a new form of relationship, a bond of heartfelt inner connection, which is the whole fix for the entire world.

One hundred years ago, foremost Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) wrote that Israel “Must present something new to the nations. This is what they expect from the return of Israel to the land! …Justice, and peace. And this wisdom is attributed to us alone.

“If this return is canceled, Zionism will be canceled altogether…And its residents are destined to endure much suffering. Undoubtedly, either they or their children will gradually leave the country, and only an insignificant number will remain, which will ultimately be swallowed among the Arabs.

“This would certainly prove to the nations the rightness of Israel’s return to their land, even to the Arabs. However, a return such as today’s does not impress the nations whatsoever, and we must fear lest they will sell Israel’s independence for their needs, needless to mention returning Jerusalem.” (“The Writings of the Last Generation.”)

Today the Jewish nation is deeply divided. Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon us to be the people whose connections between its members are the most beautiful, the closest and the most corrected.

The beginning of repairing the rift rests within us and solely between us. From within us the power of oneness will spread in widening circles to the whole world. This is an order that cannot be changed; this is a supreme law of nature. First we need to reach the love of Israel within us, and later reach the love of the world, affection for all humanity, and adherence to the Supreme Power.
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“No Victory Without Conviction, And No Conviction Without Unity” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “No Victory without Conviction, and No Conviction without Unity

The State of Israel is unique on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin. But perhaps we should talk about how Israel began, because if we know how it began, perhaps we’ll be able to understand the present complicated situation a little better. The idea of a contemporary Jewish state began in the late 19th century after pogroms against Jews in Russia, combined with socialist ideals that many secularized Jews embraced, led to the creation of Hovevey Zion [Lovers of Zion], the first Zionist movement. At the same time in France, the Dreyfus affair, when a Jewish French army officer was falsely accused of espionage for Germany, shook up a Jewish Viennese journalist named Theodor Herzl and drove him to realize that only a Jewish sovereign entity would save them from antisemitism.

We, Jews, are living in the State of Israel not for our own sake. It may appear as if we are, but it is only an illusion. We are here for the rest of the world, and unless we understand this and convince the world that this is so, we will not have the world’s support or the conviction in our being here.

As a result, at around the same time, Jews began to build and settle in Palestine, then an Ottoman province, as well as build political institutions for a future state. The Russians, who were virulently antisemitic, did not oppose the departure of the Jews from their midst, and the Ottomans had no interest in the forgotten province that was mostly marshland infested with mosquitoes and malaria.

During World War I, the British Empire conquered much of the Middle East, including all of Palestine. The British, influenced by Christian values, believed in the Biblical promise to the Jewish people. Encouraged by Jewish Cabinet members, the British government declared in 1917 that it “view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish psshheople” and to “use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”

Despite ups and downs in the relationships between the Jewish settlement in Palestine and the British authorities, the national home gradually took shape. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they aggressively urged Jews to leave Germany and go to Palestine. They even allowed German Jews to take most of their wealth with them to Palestine, which was exceptional since Germany had strict currency rules forbidding export of German Marks so as not to devalue their currency. Indeed, much of the industry required for the establishment of an independent country, such as weapons, food producing factories, roadworks, and steel industry, was established thanks to Jewish money that poured out of Nazi Germany with Germany’s and Britain’s support.

Finally, in 1948, in the wake of the Holocaust, the League of Nations voted in favor of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, and the State of Israel was founded.

We therefore see that in the making of the Jewish state, other nations, and eventually the majority of the world, supported the establishment of the State of Israel. No other country has had such support; no other country was confirmed and recognized by the world’s key establishment even before it was established. In fact, even the victory of the Jews in the War of Independence that followed the League of Nations’ declaration was achieved with the active support of foreign countries who sold weapons and ammunition to the fledgling country, with a few even joining the armed forces.

However, for all the support that the Jewish state received in its infancy, it would not have won the war against the armies of six Arab countries—which were far better equipped and outnumbered the Jews by dozens of times—were its people not convinced that their cause was just and necessary.

Today, the situation is to the contrary. We have lost the support of the world, and, even worse, we have lost the conviction in our being here. In order to renew it, we must understand why we are really here.

We, Jews, are living in the State of Israel not for our own sake. It may appear as if we are, but it is only an illusion. We are here for the rest of the world, and unless we understand this and convince the world that this is so, we will not have the world’s support or the conviction in our being here.

Our only justification for being in the land of Israel is in being the people of Israel. In other words, in the deeper, spiritual sense of the word, the people of Israel are not those who call themselves Jews, but those who agree to unite “as one man with one heart,” just as our ancestors did after they came out of Egypt. They established the people of Israel, settled in the Land of Israel, and were expelled from it when they abandoned their unity and stopped being a spiritual people of Israel.

Therefore, our conviction depends on our union “as one man with one heart,” or at least on striving to reinstate this bonding. If we do this, we will become what we were tasked with being—“a light unto nations.” Our unity will set an example of rising above enmity and will “convince” the world that we “deserve” to be here. We do not need to prove anything or convince anyone. All we need to do is unite among ourselves.

I know that achieving unity among Jews is harder than any task, and that every Jew would prefer to unite with anyone but fellow Jews. No hatred is as deep as the hatred of the Jews for one another. This is precisely why when this hatred is resolved, all hatreds will be resolved.

It therefore turns out that unity is the basis of our success, a precondition for our conviction in being here, which in itself is a precondition for our victory. If we want peace, we must begin with peace with one another.
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For more on this topic, refer to the 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.

“What Can Be The Solution/s To The Israel-Palestine Conflict?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What can be the solution/s to the Israel-Palestine conflict?

The current Israel-Palestine crisis is another chapter in an age-old conflict dating back to our early efforts to reestablish a Jewish State.

In short, we hold the key to put an end to this crisis. Our unity or division makes the difference between our enemies subsiding or rising up against us. Also, the extent to which we are united or divided mirrors the extent to which our enemies calm down or flare up.*

Why is our unity the definitive factor in this conflict?

It is because unity, and specifically unity above division, marks our uniqueness and what made us a Jewish people to begin with some 4,000 years ago in ancient Babylon. When Babylon experienced a crisis of social division, with conflicts and hatred tearing apart the ancient Babylonian society, Abraham—a Babylonian priest who discovered the path to unite above the growing divisions, i.e., reaching the revelation of the single force of love and bestowal that exists in reality above the growing ego—began openly teaching this path he discovered to anyone wanting to learn.

Since division throughout society was felt as a major problem, several people gathered around Abraham and implemented the method he taught. They went on to discover the unique unifying force of love above their divisive drives, and by doing so, became known as “the people of Israel.” The word “Israel” comes from “Yashar Kel,” which means “straight to God,” i.e., straight to the single force of love that fills reality. Later, this group became known as “the Jews” (the Hebrew word for “Jew” [Yehudi] comes from the word for “united” [yihudi] [Yaarot Devash, Part 2, Drush no. 2]).

Therefore, the Jewish nation was founded on this ideological basis. People living in ancient Babylon, who felt the pressure of the divisiveness and hatred of the time, gathered under Abraham’s guidance, and they eventually united above their divisive drives. By doing so, they became known as “a light unto the nations.” That is, their attainment of nature’s unifying force above the human ego, which causes all the divisiveness and problems in society, positively affects all of “the nations,” i.e., all people in the world. A critical mass of people uniting in love above their differences and divisions spreads love, unity, mutual care, support and encouragement throughout humanity at large. And when people feel this force of unity connecting them, they feel happier, full of confidence, strength and warmth, and then they revere the source that brings them such sensations.

As it was then, so it is today, but on a much greater global scale.

The human ego, divisiveness, conflicts and hatred are all on the rise, and they lead to crises across the board. For instance, the escalation in Israel and Palestine comes during a period of mass shootings in the United States becoming almost as commonplace as eating breakfast, and more generally, despite our increasing technological and economic connections worldwide, we feel more isolated, stressed, depressed, empty and anxious than ever before. The more people feel all kinds of negative feelings and phenomena in their lives, the more feelings of discontent toward the people of Israel surface.

If we Jews function according to the original unifying inclination that brought us together, we will then spread a positive unifying force to the world, and thus experience a positive reaction from the world. If, however, as is currently the case, we fail to make moves toward our unity, then we obstruct the positive unifying force from reaching humanity, and hatred naturally stirs up against us in order to prod us to unite. It is thus my hope that we will wake up to our fateful need to unite sooner rather than later, as doing so would spare ourselves and humanity much pain and sorrow.

We simply have no clue as to what a unifying calibration of our attitudes to each other would result in. The current Israel-Palestine crisis will calm down, and moreover, crises spanning personal, social, economic and ecological levels all throughout humanity would also subside. The rampant exploitation, manipulation, hatred and abuse in humanity would invert into its positive forms of mutual support, consideration, encouragement, love and care.

That is why I put in so many efforts to spread the message about the need for Jewish unity, because its implementation or neglect will determine whether humanity shifts to a harmonious and unifying course of development, or whether we will continue declining down the current divisive path.

* See my book, The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism: Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, for more details on this topic.

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

“Our Own Worst Enemies” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Our Own Worst Enemies

About a week ago, Amit Segal, a political commentator for Israel’s Channel 12 News, interviewed former Israeli ambassador in Washington Ron Dermer, who served from 2013 to 2021. To me, the most significant point that Dermer put across was that the support for the State of Israel among American Jews is dropping. Moreover, Dermer stressed that some of Israel’s most vociferous and venomous critics are Jews. When I look at those critics, it seems to me that they are not only hateful toward Israel, but that they take pride in their hatred.

Until we, Jews, overcome the hatred we feel for one another, there will be no healing for the hatred toward us. Throughout the centuries, we have been hated for every conceivable reason, as well as for some inconceivable ones. Hatred needs no reason or reasoning. The hatred for the State of Israel is only the latest in the series, but it is the same Jew-hatred that has tormented our people for centuries.

Indeed, the greatest antisemites are the Jews themselves. In antiquity, it was the Jew-turned-genocidal-anti-Semite Tiberius Julius Alexander who slaughtered 50,000 Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, and led the Roman army into the Temple through the Golden doors his own father had built. In the Middle-Ages, it was Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, a descendant of Jews, who initiated and oversaw the Spanish Inquisition that led to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. In modern times, Jews have been acting against Jews on countless occasions, but perhaps one of the most notorious among them was Rabbi Stephen Wise, the leader of American Jewry during World War II, who helped President Roosevelt hamper the immigration of the Jews from Germany and Austria to the US while they could still save themselves from the persecution of the Nazi regime.

In order to understand how it is possible that Jews would hate Jews so vehemently, we need to understand that the root of the Jewish people is connection. We became a nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai when we agreed to unite “as one man with one heart,” and we lost our nationhood, along with our land, when we succumbed to unfounded hatred. Since then, and for the past two millennia, we have been in exile from each other, from our most basic tenet, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The State of Israel represents a chance we have been given to restore our nationhood, namely our unity. Jews who oppose the State of Israel are actually opposing unity. Perhaps subconsciously, they do not want to unite “as one man with one heart,” and certainly not to love their neighbors as themselves. They preach justice for others, but they exude hate for their own. In the name of equity to all, they promote prejudice and discrimination against their folk.

It will not help. Until we, Jews, overcome the hatred we feel for one another, there will be no healing for the hatred toward us. Throughout the centuries, we have been hated for every conceivable reason, as well as for some inconceivable ones. Hatred needs no reason or reasoning. The hatred for the State of Israel is only the latest in the series, but it is the same Jew-hatred that has tormented our people for centuries.

However, here, in sovereign Israel, we finally have a chance to reinstate our unity, and regain our nationhood. This is our duty to ourselves, and our onus toward the nations. Unity is the only way we can become “a light unto nations.” If we want to win the world’s favor, we must focus on internal unity. When we display hatred toward each other and sympathy for others, they see it as sycophancy, and no one likes a sycophant. I think it is time we started looking more at each other and built some inner strength, and less at others and what they might think. They will think about us what we will think about each other.

The Mystery Of The Unification Of The Masculine And Feminine, Part 7

565.02The Role of the Man and the Role of the Woman

Question: How important is a woman’s work according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: On the whole, a man is a more mobile creature than a woman. He is active, he runs about, jumps, and crosses seas and oceans. But he does all that for a woman in order to have everything that both she and he need. A woman, on the other hand, helps him, because without her help a man will not succeed.

So the advancement in groups is based on the clear mutual cooperation between the male part and the female part. If we say that we are in a process of fulfilling the idea of accepting the leadership of the Creator and His work now, we need two reins for that, both the male and the female reins. The female rein is the left one, and the male rein is the right one. Through these two representatives of the human race we can resemble the Creator.

It is important to emphasize that the wisdom of Kabbalah designates an even greater role for a woman than for a man. We don’t see it at the moment because men are more prominent as usual, but in fact, subconsciously there is actually the female desire in everything, the female force and the female participation.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/3/19

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How Kabbalah Helps Solve Problems

568.01Question: If there are problems in relations between people, does Kabbalah help solve these problems?

Answer: Partly. I cannot say that in everything at once. I cannot say that a person begins to study and it immediately becomes clear to him where he is and how he should act. This is not the case. But a person begins to understand how he should act in order not to make mistakes.

Although these actions may not be entirely convenient for him—actions of bestowal, actions of benevolence, love, and so on—they show him in which direction he must act in order to be in the correct relationship with the universe, with nature, with all the forces that affect us. Put yourself in a state where all forces will act on him for the good.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/21

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How To Get Out Of Apathy

565.01Question: Recently, I see how people close to me seem to have turned over. They were full of feelings, the meaning of life, joy, hatred, and love. And suddenly indifference to the goal, to others, to the troubles of others, to the happiness of others. There is not even envy.

Suddenly such a state came after all this crises, all these blows. Suddenly the person hid in this niche and it is good for him to live in it. What is it?

Answer: First, it is the awareness of a person. That is, a person must realize and say that he is in such a state. “I was struck by this state. I am in it, and I do not see how I can get out of it.”

Comment: But if so, this is already a prayer. He already wants to get out of this state.

My Response: No, he doesn’t want to. The fact of the matter is that he sees that he does not want anything, he is absolutely apathetic to what is happening, and has an unwillingness to change anything because he sees that nothing can be changed! And no matter what he does, it will, perhaps, only get worse.

“Therefore, we do not need to change anything! So we will live as long as we need, we will live, when necessary, we will die. Everything will be fine. Why twitch? We see that from all our interventions in what is happening things can only be worse. Let’s not do anything, let’s leave it all. Like in a boat, we see that we can’t get anywhere and do nothing. Let’s throw away the oars, we’ll sit quietly.”

Question: And he even sort of feels good?

Answer: Of course he feels good. You understand that you surrender yourself to the will of the waves.

Question: You made an accurate diagnosis. Now, how can we get a person out of this or not?

Answer: Who can one withdraw? Who has the ability and understanding of where to withdraw?

Comment: Sit down and talk to him.

My Response: About what? What can I tell him?! I can tell him the other way around: “You have come to the correct conclusion. Sit down and don’t fuss.”

Exactly. Because he has no solution, he does not know or understand anything. He is not in connection with the forces of nature that attract us to somewhere. And therefore, the best thing about it is to surrender to the will of the waves.

When Rabbi Akiva was asked how he escaped from the sinking ship, he said: “I grabbed the board, bridled it, sat on it, and for all the waves that passed, I bent my head, and they passed over me. And so these waves pushed me to the shore. Why? Because I did not resist them.”

Question: That is, you propose, as a recipe for a person in this state, first of all, not to interfere. Secondly, that he be in this state of floating at the behest of the waves?

Answer: Yes. And this is the most true when you surrender to the will of nature. Because you still have no other choice. And in nature you know that there are great forces, there is a great mind, and there is something that is above us, some laws, unknown to us, eternal, and so on. And there is something in it that still controls us. So why should I resist? I will only drain my strength, fall to the bottom of my boat, and that’s it.

Comment: So your advice is to wait? Time will take its toll.

My Response: It’s not just waiting. This is a type of prayer, this is agreement with the higher nature: “I am ready to obey you.”

Comment: Do what you want with me.

My Response: Yes. And in fact, you always do what you want with me. But now I finally begin to feel that I don’t need more. This is already a stage of comprehension, a stage of communication.

Question: That is, if a person comes to this thought, this is already a great advance toward the Creator, one might say, toward the law of nature, which governs everything?

Answer: Of course. He does not climb with his limited thoughts when he wants to spoil nature even more and more. Enough! Do not get involved, do not interfere with the flow of nature and what it does to us! So it is said in the Torah too: “Sit and do nothing—it is preferable.”

Question: Is that how you feel about a person who has entered the spirit of indifference?

Answer: And he has nothing else. Where will it come from? Therefore, he is right. This is the surest way out in his condition.

Question: And what is your advice to me, as his friend?

Answer: It depends on how this friend can understand where he exists, in what forces of nature and if he can use these forces correctly. That is, add yourself to the same direction in which nature wants to lead him. That is, in this case, I do not resist the will of the waves. I am ready to go along with the waves in the same direction, also including my forces in this.

So everything is very peaceful, calm, and good.

Comment: So you have sung such a hymn to the indifferent now.

My Response: This is not indifferent, but reasonable.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/22/21

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What Determines The Existence Of The World?

283.02Zohar for All, VaYetze, item 14: Although these seven holy Havalim are the sustenance of the world, opposite them are seven Havalim from which all the Dinim [judgments] in the world come out.

There are seven original desires in each of us. They do not change.

If we use them for our own sake, they turn into the judgments directed at us. If we use them for the sake of bestowal, for connection with others, then they turn into blessings.

By connecting with each other in this way through our desires, we form a common body that begins to exchange energy, information, and vitality within itself and comes to life. To the extent of our connection, from inanimate stones we turn into vegetative, animate, and even human matter.

Therefore, the seven pillars (desires) can be negative, as today in our world we are driving ourselves into the ground by using them only for our own sake, thereby killing everything around us: both ourselves and the surrounding nature. Yet, we can turn this into a blessing.

Everything depends not on how we use what is around us, but on how we use ourselves. Our attitude to each other and to the surrounding nature determines everything. Therefore, it is written “Hevel Havalim (Vanity of vanities) are the sustenance of the world.” “Vanity of vanities” is my attitude to others. If I direct it incorrectly, it actually turns into evil and judgment.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #13

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Understand The Whole Plan Of The Creator

237Question: Why was it necessary to shatter the common soul?

Answer: In order to understand what the Creator means.

Let us say you take a beautiful statue or something magnificent, an amazing work of nature, and break it into small pieces. You break the perfection, which is like the Creator. This is how Adam was created.

The Creator Himself takes and breaks His beloved, His only work, into billions of pieces. Why? How? If someone saw it from the side…! We do not understand why He created the world so evil, so dreadful. He created man so terrible, so low. The great, perfect, eternal Creator created something completely opposite to Himself, and yet enjoys that we are suffering here?!

How can this be? I would not wish this state we exist which in on any enemy: this flawed, petty, humiliated, state constantly in pursuit of somehow trying to fulfill ourselves. This is a terrible condition! If we are talking about the eternal and perfect Creator, the power that can do anything, He suddenly created such a thing?!

This is because we see ourselves in this broken state and do not understand that it is best. If we begin to gradually assemble ourselves from it, we will collect ourselves into the similarity of the Creator. Moreover, from this work, we will understand who the Creator is.

We will begin to understand the whole plan of the Creator: why He decided to reduce Himself to the level most opposite from the initial perfection and give us the opportunity to gradually create this perfection from ourselves?

People who want to rise to the level of the Creator wonder about the meaning of life, about the meaning of suffering: “What are they for? What is the meaning of our life? What is it about and what is its purpose?”

When these urgent questions arise in them and life is no longer smiling at them, they must find an answer to it. They feel that everything else has no flavor and all that is left to do is to plunge into drugs, alcohol, or whatever just to forget about this monotony. So, such people are shown from above that there is a method of achieving perfection, which is called the science of Kabbalah.

This method has been hidden for many thousands of years. The Book of Zohar, written two thousand years ago, says that it will be revealed in two thousand years, when we mature to realize that our world and our existence are flawed, we can do nothing with ourselves, and we face total despair.

That is when this Book will find a person and say: “Are you sure you are throwing up your hands in frustration? Then I Will show you the way.”
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #3

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