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The War Of Gog And Magog, Part 1

232.06The Opposition of the Two Properties of Nature

Comment: “The War of Gog and Magog” is a prediction written by the prophet Ezekiel in the 5th century BC 2,500 years ago. But the events that are described in the Book of Ezekiel in The Prophets in the Tanakh and the signs that are mentioned there point to our time.

We know that all the original sources written thousands of years ago spoke not about corporeal events, but about spiritual ones. In addition, Gog and Magog are not two different characters, since Gog is the king and Magog is the place he came from.

My Response: The fact is that our entire world is going through a series of corrections, which consist in the opposition of the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, egoistic and altruistic forces, plus and minus. All of nature at the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels consists of this.

At the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels, there are interactions of plus and minus, absorption and expansion, of everything that only exists in nature, in all forces: physical, chemical, etc. This is studied in our earthly sciences.

But the same forces exist at the level at which the properties of a person exist: bestowal and reception. These so-called mental properties are studied only by the science of Kabbalah. We cannot define them precisely because these forces are only partially known to us, for the most part they are hidden.

Moreover, they manifest themselves only in the form in which positive and negative properties are expressed in us. And due to the fact that a person explores them inside himself and on himself, it is very difficult for him to study them because for this he must become separated from himself.

Therefore, when the science of Kabbalah deals with a man’s attitude to himself and to the world, with our properties of bestowal and reception, what in nature is called plus and minus, attraction and repulsion, then our knowledge about the corporeal world is not enough, and we need to explore our inner properties.

But since they are hidden from us and we see them not in front of us, but only inside ourselves, then, by exploring them in ourselves, we are partly an interested party, and therefore, we cannot study ourselves objectively.

As a result, the science of Kabbalah has developed and is developing only to the extent that a person can rise above himself. Only in this form when he kind of repulses himself, rises above himself, which is called “in faith above reason,” can he research himself objectively, regardless of his attitude to what he is studying, and can he only study the properties themselves.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/30/21

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What Is Talent Given For?

630.2The lower the soul of a person,
the higher the nose  [turns] up.
He stretches his nose to where the soul has not grown.
(Omar Khayyam)

We see this in real life even with a naked eye. And everyone can see that it is so.

Comment: A person displays himself, he becomes a great politician, a great businessman.

My Response: He has to hold himself up somehow. If others do not hold him by appreciating him and respecting him, then he raises himself in this way. Look at all the politicians.

Question: That is, “he stretches his nose to where the soul has not grown”? Where does the soul stretch, rise up to what?

Answer: The soul stretches to the Creator, that is if a person understands this. And if his soul does not grow to such a state, then at least he wants to raise himself to such a level that he is respected.

Question: Does he put pressure on others?

Answer: Of course!

Question: And if the soul grows, then it raises him?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Why is man given individuality? After all, he is still growing, he wants to grow!

Answer: Everyone is very individual. To the extent that a person wants to realize himself in closeness with the Creator, in likeness to the Creator, and he shows himself more through these actions, all his correct properties become prominent.

Although it seems that if he wants to become like the Creator, he nullifies himself. No!

Question: Why is man given talents, individuality?

Answer: Only for this. So that he becomes like the Creator in each of its special properties.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/2/20

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“Where Do We Go From Here?” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Where Do We Go From Here?

We haven’t even recovered from Covid-19, and already, we are at war with our neighbors. And this time, it is not only with our neighbors across the Gazan border, but literally with our next door neighbors: Israeli Arabs who have been living peacefully with Israelis for more than five decades. In fact, most of the youngsters rioting now have never known anything but peaceful living alongside Israelis. They work in Israel, with Israeli Jews, went to Israeli universities with Israeli Jews, and send their representatives to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Yet, now they are rioting against Jews, raising flags of Palestine, where they do not want to live, and burning the Israeli flag, where they do want to live. They are lynching, shooting, and stoning Jews, burning Jewish owned shops, synagogues, and cars, and they are chanting “Death to the Jews.”

From day to day, our hatred for each other is growing more intense and venomous. Accordingly, the passion of our neighbors to throw us out of here is proportionally intensifying. The equation is clear and simple; we just have to be honest enough to see it: When we hate each other, they hate us; when we want to destroy each other (as we did in the Second Temple), they want to destroy us.

To us, Jews, this is a major shock. Most Israelis did not imagine that this was how their Arab neighbors felt about them. The situation calls for some serious reckoning. We need to contemplate where to go from here, and why we are here in the first place. No other nation needs to ask these questions, but we, Jews, must. Because if we cannot explain to ourselves, and even more important, to the world(!), why we exist, and why specifically here in Israel, then we will have no moral right to be here, or to be at all.

Telling ourselves that we are here because we needed to save ourselves from antisemitism in the wake of the Holocaust is not the answer. Already, the nations regret voting in favor of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine in November 1947. They haven’t decided to reverse that decision, yet, but if they had to vote on it again, they would vote overwhelmingly against the whole idea.

So, what should we do? We must remind ourselves that we are here not to build a shelter from antisemitism, but to reestablish our peoplehood. We became a nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai, when we pledged to unite “as one man with one heart,” and we were immediately tasked with passing on that unity to the rest of the world, or as the Torah phrases it, with being “a light unto nations.” This is why Old Hillel told the man who asked him what it meant to be a Jew, “That which you hate, do not do unto your neighbor; this is the whole of the Torah, and the rest is commentary” (Shabbat, 31a). This is also why Rabbi Akiva, whose disciples wrote both the Mishnah and The Book of Zohar, said that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the principal law of the Torah (Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim, 30b). We should ask ourselves if we are keeping this law, because if we aren’t, then we don’t deserve to be here.

I think the truth is evident. From day to day, our hatred for each other is growing more intense and venomous. Accordingly, the passion of our neighbors to throw us out of here is proportionally intensifying. The equation is clear and simple; we just have to be honest enough to see it: When we hate each other, they hate us; when we want to destroy each other (as we did in the Second Temple), they want to destroy us.

But the opposite is just as true: When we love each other, they love us. We determine our fate by determining how we relate to one another. I don’t know where we will go from here, but I do know what we need to do if we want to go anywhere good: We need to start developing love for one another. The harder we work on this, the faster our situation will improve.
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[Image: People walk next to burnt vehicles as they enter a building after violent confrontations in the city of Lod, Israel between Israeli Arab demonstrators and police, amid high tensions over hostilities between Israel and Gaza militants and tensions in Jerusalem May 12, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun]

“Where Israel’s Real Might Lies” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Where Israel’s Real Might Lies

The rockets from Gaza are frightening, and they are certainly disrupting our lives. However, the real monster that’s emerged in this round of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the violence of Arabs who are Israeli citizens against Jews. Last night, rioters went through all the Jewish businesses in Old Acre, in Northern Israel, and torched every one of them. Attempted lynches were carried out in Lod, Tamra, and Acre. Jews were also injured from gunshots fired into homes in Lod, as well as from rocks and stones, and Molotov cocktail bottles. In Haifa, 60 Jews were hurt by smoke inhalation after Arabs torched cars owned by Jews, and the list goes on and on. All this comes on top of the hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, killing several people, wounding many more, and destroying homes and property.

Let me be clear, we must have military power. We must protect ourselves to the best of our ability, and attack those who attack us. However, if we base our confidence on military edge, it will fall apart, as we are seeing now. Israel’s only might always was, is, and will forever be the unity of its people, and nothing else.

Such mayhem is enough to shake up the confidence of anyone, and indeed it has. The Israelis are losing their confidence, but I believe it’s for the best, since now we can begin to base it on a solid foundation.

Let me be clear, we must have military power. We must protect ourselves to the best of our ability, and attack those who attack us. However, if we base our confidence on military edge, it will fall apart, as we are seeing now. Israel’s only might always was, is, and will forever be the unity of its people, and nothing else.

It doesn’t matter how divided we are; it doesn’t matter how deeply we hate each other for our different views or cultures. If we spread a canopy of solidarity over all our differences because of the simple fact that we are Jews and the essence of our peoplehood is unity above division, then no harm will come to us. On the contrary, by doing so, we will win the world’s respect and favor. Below is a piece of Jewish history that tells the tale of unity, division, and ultimate unity, and how it impacts other nations.

During the reign of Antiochus III the Great (222 to 187 BCE), Judea was ruled by the Seleucid Empire but enjoyed almost complete autonomy, as long as they paid their (reasonable) taxes to the king. In fact, in Antiquities of the Jews, Flavius Josephus writes that Antiochus the Great considered it his duty to guard the autonomy of the Jews. To show his appreciation for their assistance and his reverence for their way of life, he wrote a formal letter permitting the Jews to live according to their way: “On account of their piety toward God, [Antiochus decided to] bestow on them, as a pension for their [Temple work] … twenty thousand pieces of silver, in addition to abundance of fine flour, wheat, and salt.” His successor, Seleucus IV Philopator, kept the status quo with the Jews, who continued to live untroubled in Judea.

Even Antiochus Epiphanes, who succeeded Seleucus IV, initially had no intention to change the status quo in Judea, were it not for certain Jews who had decided to incite him against their brethren. Those Jews wanted to force the Hellenistic culture on Judea and take control of the country. To achieve this, their leader, Yason [Jason], paid Epiphanes a hefty sum of money, who, in return, ousted the incumbent High Priest in Jerusalem and handed the position over to Jason.

Jason quickly turned Jerusalem into a polis, renamed it Antiochia, and constructed a gymnasium at the foot of Temple Mount. In addition, the Hellenistic Jews abandoned ancient customs that related to the Temple and began to sow division in the country. In fact, the Hellenists sowed so much division that they even fought among themselves, between supporters of Jason and supporters of Menelaus (who in 170 BCE paid off Antiochus to oust Jason and make him the High Priest). By the time Antiochus Epiphanes wrote his infamous decree that demanded all Jews to become Hellenists, many of the Jews were already in agreement with his demands. In fact, according to The Book of the Maccabees (Vol. 1), “many of the Israelites consented to his religion and sacrificed unto idols.”

But we know the end of the story: The Hasmonean family in Modiin revolted against the decree, and under the leadership of Judah Maccabee, the Jews united and ousted the Hellenists. Moreover, Antiochus V Eupator, who succeeded Antiochus Epiphanes, restored the agreement of freedom to the Jews that his great grandfather, Antiochus III, had signed, and put the final seal on the Hasmonean Revolt when he executed Menelaus as a punishment for luring him into a war he did not want to fight.

Today, twenty-three centuries after the saga, it seems as though we haven’t learned much. As then, so now, we have to fight for our freedom because we didn’t fight for our unity before. Had this been our one and only focus, we wouldn’t have had to worry about anything else, just as the Jews in Judea enjoyed their freedom as long as they had kept their unity.

As long as we still have a country, we must shift our attention to our solidarity, to our unity, as this is our real weapon. While fighting against our enemies, we must fight the separation among us even more, since this, in the end, will determine the outcome of the war against the Arabs.
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Information About The Cave Of Machpelah

560Question: How can a person who has started studying Kabbalah or just decides to study it use the information about the cave of Machpelah correctly for spiritual development?

Answer: There are several possibilities for spiritual development here. First, maybe a person should not even think, talk, or listen to the fact that such places exist physically because he will think that spiritual forces and spiritual qualities are concentrated in them. He will start going there, worshipping them, and so on, which is not really the purpose of our conversation.

Or maybe he will be interested in this topic from a historical or geographical point of view. These are all interesting points since there is nothing in our world that does not have its root in the upper world. Therefore, it is worth looking at it precisely from this point.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/23/21

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“Did The Ten Commandments Come From God?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Did the Ten Commandments come from God?

The true meaning of ten commandments eludes us in this world, and it is common to refer to them simply as God’s instructions for human morality. However, the ten commandments mean something else entirely.

The ten commandments are limitations that we apply to the use of our nature, the desire to enjoy, which in the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “Malchut.” In the language of Kabbalah, these limitations are a “Masach” (“screen”) and “Ohr Hozer” (“reflected light”) placed on Malchut, which in short means applying an intention to love, bestow and positively connect to each other and to our common source. When our desire to enjoy, Malchut, accepts these limitations, it becomes the place for the dressing of the ten Sefirot, and so it is called “the Ten Commandments.”

A commandment, which in Hebrew is “Dover,” stems from the Hebrew root of the word “utterance” (“Dibur”), which is born in the Peh (mouth) of the Partzuf (spiritual entity), known in Kabbalah as the “Peh de Rosh” (i.e., the place in our soul where we act on our decision to resemble the spiritual quality of love, bestowal and connection, and which receives the ability to love and bestow according to the strength of the intention to bestow). These actions are performed in the world of Atzilut, the highest of the spiritual worlds that is closest to the pure quality of love and bestowal, the Creator’s quality.

We receive the ten commandments only after connecting to each other “as one man with one heart” in order to rise above the raging egoistic desires that resist connection, and which make us hateful of one another. That massive egoistic quality is represented in the Bible story by Mount Sinai (“Sinai” from the Hebrew word for “hatred” [“Sinah”]). If we fail to positively connect to each other in order to rise above the ego that divides us, then we also cannot discover or observe any of the ten commandments. We have to be on a spiritual level of attainment, namely the level of “Bina,” one of the ten Sefirot which represents the pure quality of bestowal, in order to have the ear (Bina is the spiritual root of our sense of hearing) to hear the ten utterances from Mount Sinai. In other words, we need to attain a certain level of equivalence of form with the Creator in order to observe the ten commandments.

We can reach a spiritual level where we will discover and observe the ten commandments by first undergoing a preparation period in this world, where our main emphasis should be to achieve connection “as one man with one heart,” and only then will we observe the commandments. Otherwise we will lack the ability to understand them. In short, “love your neighbor as yourself” is the foundation of all spiritual attainment and ascent to a spiritual level.

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.
Photo by Clint Adair on Unsplash.

“Is Israel Technically Becoming An Apartheid State?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Is Israel technically becoming an apartheid state?

I’m not interested in all these labels people apply to Israel. My view of Israel is guided solely by authentic Kabbalistic sources that I have been studying for over forty years now.

Nonetheless, taking into account the vast amount of Arabs in Israeli society who share equal rights as Israeli citizens, whom you will find studying at universities and in a whole range of respected professions, such as lawyers and doctors, I would not consider Israel an apartheid state. Apartheid is something completely different.

Yet the various categories that people place Israel into do not matter to me. What does matter is the growing need for the people of Israel to realize their role in the world: to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) and be a conduit for unity to spread worldwide (“a light unto nations”).

If the people of Israel would observe this condition, then both the people of Israel and the world would experience a whole new kind of harmony, peace and happiness enter into their lives. If the people of Israel fail to make any motion toward more unification among themselves, then the attitude toward Israel will continue worsening.

Whether you define Israel as an “apartheid” or a “terrorist” state makes no difference because it will not change reality. What matters is our attitude to the law of nature that determines everything: to learn how it determines everything and how we are in relation to it.

I need to realize that as a Jew, I ignite the hatred that others have toward me. In other words, if I fail to work on connecting positively to others, starting from a positive connection to the people of Israel, then I stimulate the massive human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—which brings division and hatred to humanity. Accordingly, negative sentiment toward Israel and the Jewish people grows from one day to the next, leading to decisions that are based on this growing hatred. Therefore, what do I have to fight if I myself give rise to that hatred against me?

All I see in such negative stereotyping of Israel is that we fail to act as we need to. I attribute nothing to Israel’s critics and haters. If the people of Israel would operate according to what made them the people of Israel to begin with—a group that aims at its increasing unity according to “love your neighbor as yourself” in order to spread unity and love to the world—then the world would respond positively to Israel. By uniting and generating a positive force among themselves, people worldwide would feel a much more harmonious, balanced, happy and confident sensation surface within them, myriad problems and crises would thus subside, and the attitude toward Israel would also invert from an increasingly negative one—as it currently is—to one that respects and loves the people who bring unification and goodness to the world. The nations of the world are like a shadow of the actions of the people of Israel.

“The Israeli nation was to be a ‘transition.’ This means that to the extent that Israel cleanse themselves … so they pass their power on to the rest of the nations.” – Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Love of the Creator and the Love of the Created Beings.”

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

The Mystery Of The Unification Of The Masculine And Feminine, Part 9

631.2Connecting in Order to Attain the Creator

Question: If a family is the beastly level, what relations can we build between a man and a woman on the spiritual level?

Answer: This will already be a different family. People will begin to live not just in order to have children, to supply their basic needs, and to plant a tree. In fact, they will unite between them according to the spiritual principle.

This is the meaning of the unity between a man and a woman. It is as is said in the Torah, “A man and a woman, Shechina between them.”

Question: What should they do so that the Creator will be revealed?

Answer: They should connect on all levels, on the corporeal level, internally, mentally, and psychologically so that it will be for the sake of attaining the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/3/19

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The Torah—A List Of The Laws Of Nature

137Question: There is a lot of controversy around the date of writing of the Torah and its authorship and there are several approaches to this issue: religious, academic, and Kabbalistic.

The religious approach explains everything very simply: The Creator Himself, God Himself gave people the Torah through Moses. According to the academic approach, there was no way out of Egypt at all, up to the fact that the Torah was written in the 6th century BC and was written over hundreds of years.

It is interesting that The Book of Zohar says: “When the Creator wished to create the world, and this was manifested in a desire before Him, He looked into the Torah and created it.” This means that the Torah existed even before the creation of the world.

What does Kabbalah say about this? What is the Torah and who wrote it?

Answer: Indeed, there are completely different definitions of what the Torah is. I adhere to a clear generally accepted approach of the Halacha [the totality of laws and ordinances that have evolved since biblical times to regulate religious observances and the daily life and conduct of the Jewish people] to everything that concerns the writing of not only the Torah, but also the Tanakh, Talmud, and other sources.

The only difference from the point of view of Kabbalah is that the Torah is a list of the laws of nature. It is just that it is described in this form, in the application to a person. But in principle, these are the laws of nature.

Therefore, people who are in the comprehension of the Creator fulfill these laws because they feel them in themselves. They have changed themselves internally, for them, these laws are the laws of their life, behavior, adaptation to the world, and perception of the world.

Moreover, the Torah for them is not a book that you can leaf through, read, do something from what is written in it, and somehow act, but the law according to which they exist internally because it talks about how they can completely coincide with nature. Nature or the Creator is one and the same.

This is the law of communication between people and between man and nature or the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/3/19

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