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“Why Are The Jews (And Israel) Hated So Disproportionately Throughout Human History?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Why are the Jews (and Israel) hated so disproportionately throughout human history?

If we would not have been hated disproportionately throughout history, then we would not exist.

Hatred toward us has been our key unifying factor. We have no natural will to unite, but nature’s forces act in order to unite us, first among each other, and then through us to humanity.

We should not try to escape antisemitism, but rather understand it as a necessary force in nature, and penetrate into the core of the phenomenon in order to extract the knowledge of exactly why it exists and how to leverage it to humanity’s and nature’s benefit.

We should seek to deepen our knowledge and implementation of the wisdom of connection, to learn the core reasons for all events taking place today and in history, to show us how nature operates on all of us, and what we can do in order to unite, and by doing so, enter into balance with nature.

When we start enriching our connections through education that paves the path to unity above division, then we will start progressing to a positive form of unity that is in balance with nature. And when we unite in such a way, we will realize our role as “a light unto the nations.”

Therefore, the way to solve antisemitism once and for all is for us to unite according to the rule “Love your neighbor as yourself.” By doing so, humanity will start discovering a whole new harmonious and abundant reality.

In short, when people feel the positive effects of unity entering into their lives—happiness, confidence, safety, good health, relationships and the feeling that we lack nothing in our lives but to increase our love and care for others—then the hatred of Jews will not only disappear for good, but on the contrary, it will invert into a positive form of love, respect and appreciation toward a people that serve as a conduit for a newfound happiness entering their lives.

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

“Britain’s Jews Have Nowhere To Turn But To Each Other” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Britain’s Jews Have Nowhere to Turn But to Each Other

Since the beginning of the current campaign between Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Israel, there has been an alarming spike in hostilities against Jews. According to The New York Times, the Community Security Trust, which records antisemitic threats, saw a “490 percent increase” in antisemitic incidents from the previous seven days. The trust also said “it believed that many more attacks had gone unreported.” The attacks are not only growing more frequent, but also more brazen and violent, and the media coverage of them is, as always, biased or partial or nonexistent.

Regrettably, I don’t think there is much that UK Jews can do about it. As always, when Jews, or the State of Israel, are involved in a conflict, it galvanizes antisemites into action. As a result, the increase in antisemitic aggression is visible the world over, and not only in the UK.

For this reason, I don’t think that the UK Jews have anywhere to go. Israel might have been a safer place before, but I’m not sure this is still the case. It might become, in its own way, as unsafe as London or Brooklyn or anywhere else. In fact, the very places where Jews felt the safest have become the most unsafe places for Jews.

We are approaching a situation where people all over the world will tell Jews, “Who are you? You are not a nation, and therefore, you have no place. You conquered the land of Canaan, which belonged to seven other nations, and you think it belongs to you? Subsequently, you were driven out, and you yourselves fled from here, and now you want to return to that land?”

If we look into it, we will see that wherever there are Jews, there are problems. We are hated, rejected, and it will reach a point where we will not have one safe place for Jews. If we look even deeper, we will realize the reason for it, and then we will understand that in the current state of the people of Israel, we have nothing to look for on Earth. No one likes us; no one wants us, everyone hates us; and everyone rejects us.

In light of all this, the best, and only thing that Britain’s Jews should do is turn to one another. The unity of Jews has always been our shield against oppressors, aggressors, and other evildoers. Now, too, it is their only hope.

This, by the way, is true not only of UK Jews, but of all Jews wherever they are. In fact, our unity would be most effective if we weren’t forced into it by antisemites. If we opted for unity rather than our customary enmity toward each other, our haters would stop hating us. We wouldn’t have to apologize for being; our unity would project warmth and power, and its radiance would draw all the nations toward us, not in hostility, but in friendship.

Currently, the nations are becoming increasingly belligerent toward each other, and one way or the other, they blame it on the Jews. For our part, we do very little to show that they are wrong. On the contrary, we exude so much self-hatred that no one wants to associate with us. Therefore, the world will not change its attitude toward us until we change it toward each other. Our only hope lies in our unity—in times of war, as in times of peace.

The War Of Gog And Magog, Part 4

275The Force that Leads to the Intention for the Sake of Bestowal

Comment: The 16th century Kabbalist the Ari wrote that the numerical value of the words “Gog” and “Magog” is 70. This probably explains what was written in The Book of Zohar that Gog will bring all the 70 nations of the world with it to Israel.

My Response: This is a complete Kli (vessel). The Creator will lead all the desires created by Him to a common state where they will have to discern all the opposite relationships among themselves in order to ultimately unite into harmony.

Comment: And the prophets write that Gog will gather all the nations of the world and lead them to war against Israel.

My Response: Yes, because Israel is not considered one of the 70 nations, it is not among them, but arises as the sum total of all the nations of the world when in an attempt to fight among themselves, they begin to understand, under the influence of this force called Israel, that it is drawing them to the Creator (Yashar-El—straight to the Creator). In this case, Israel leads all the nations of the world through the war of Gog and Magog to the Creator.

Question: As we know, Abraham created a group of 70 nations assembled on an ideological basis in Ancient Babylon, and they became the people of Israel. And then all of the 70 nations of the world began to fight against the people of Israel. It turns out, as it is said in Kabbalah, that “the people of Israel” means intentions and the “70 nations” means desires?

Answer: Correct.

Comment: And since the Creator Himself is the property of bestowal and love, then, in principle, this property should win.

My Response: Israel is the representative of the Creator in this world because it gives direction to desires. There are 70 desires that must unite with each other with the intention “straight to the Creator.”

Question: Does “Israel will win” mean that every desire of the nations of the world will be given the correct intention for the sake of bestowal?

Answer: Yes. In no way does it imply here that someone is destroying someone else. It is just that these 70 desires that exist in every person and in general in all of humanity have an egoistic intention to act only for their own sake.

And Israel is the force that is able to show, convince, prove, and lead all these desires to gaining intention for the sake of bestowal, to mutual bestowal and love. And then all these so-called 70 nations of the world, i.e., all the desires that are in every person, are directed to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/30/21

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The Long Road To Jerusalem

919Kabbalah says that every object down here in this world corresponds to the upper root in the spiritual world. Spiritual Jerusalem is the point of connection between the egoistic desire of a person in need of correction and the desire to bestow of the upper force, the Creator. Therefore, it is called the perfect city, the city of peace.

Just as a person who goes to Jerusalem cannot be considered to be in this city, even if he has already traveled 80% of the way, so a person who wants to achieve correction, revelation of the Creator, a sense of the spiritual world, goes through many different states, until finally he reaches the last state, the state of entering Jerusalem, to a place near the Temple Mount. Then he can say that he is in the heart of Jerusalem.

This shows us that we need to put a lot of effort into our lives to achieve the revelation of the Shechina, the Creator, the upper spiritual force, and only at the last state do we finally come to this. This is symbolized by the road to Jerusalem, which can be very long, thousands of years, many kilometers, but in the end we will come to the goal.

Baal HaSulam disliked modern Jerusalem and called it a place of Klipot, evil forces. But in the future, Jerusalem must become a holy city.

Rabash was also critical of Jerusalem as a place where all the world’s religions, all kinds of currents, riots, and hatred for each other collided. Let us hope that this temporary face of Jerusalem will soon change.

Therefore, the attitude to Jerusalem depends on which city we are talking about: the material Jerusalem or the spiritual one, today’s or the one that should rise in the future.

I was born far from Jerusalem. My grandfather, who was a very religious man, told me a lot about this city with great trepidation. I was only six or seven years old, but I felt how eager he was to get here and connect with this place. Even just talking about it was a huge pleasure for him. But he was born in exile and died in exile, never having seen Jerusalem.

When I was immigrated to Israel and went to Jerusalem for the first time, I entered through the gate to the old city, I felt as if he were accompanying me, and I was realizing my grandfather’s dream. It was very exciting.

Let us hope that Jerusalem will regain its title as the “Perfect City,” and we will reveal the Creator to the creatures in it so that “everyone will know Him from young to old” since “My house will be called the house of prayer for all nations.” I think that time is near.

The Book of Zohar says that Jerusalem is like a heart in a common organism, and therefore the world cannot exist without it, just as it is impossible to live without a heart. Jerusalem is the center of all material and spiritual reality, the foundation of all creation.

I very much hope that we will see how the ten spiritual qualities will be combined with the material desire in this place. When this connection takes place, that is, they reach equivalence at the point of connection, then our world will receive nutrition, nourishment with forces and filling from the upper world. This will affect all religions and beliefs, and all will come to the state of which it is said: “My house will be called the house of prayer for all nations.”
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From KabTV’s “The Peace” 4/27/21

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Why Is The Torah So Hard To Understand?

209Comment: If we say that everything in the Torah is written allegorically, but at the same time we recognize that there were such a people, that the exodus from Egypt happened, that there is the Land of Israel and today we claim it, then it turns out that people call it “allegorical” when it suits them and when not then “it really happened.”

My Response: These people have nothing to do with Kabbalah, so I have nothing to talk about with them. What allegory? Kabbalah speaks about the laws of nature, about its true laws.

I look not at what historians write but at what is passed down to us from generation to generation. And this is always confirmed. I am not interested in university scholars disagreeing with this. Although I myself have obtained my doctorate in Kabbalah and to some extent I belong to them, I am not interested in their conclusions because they rely on what is beneficial for them in order to manipulate some facts, to say something new. I met with American, Russian, and Israeli scientists, and I see how they work.

Comment: Such things do happen, of course. But I am using simple facts as an example. It is written: “And God completed on the seventh day His work that He did, and He abstained on the seventh day from all His work that He did.” We understand that this cannot be. Or it is said that the serpent stood on two legs. It is clear that this is an allegory.

Answer: Absolutely.

Question: Explain when it is an allegory and when not? Are the ten Egyptian plagues laws of nature? It seems like some kind of incomprehensible mysticism. What was happening there?

Answer: The Torah only writes about what happens inside a person.

Comment: But based on all the historical facts, we claim the State of Israel. The whole history is built on the fact that there is such a nation.

My Response: Because these events actually took place here. This is proved by excavations and everything else.

Question: So what happened and what did not? What is allegory and what is not? What is inside a person and what is not? How can this be understood correctly?

Answer: The people of Israel lived in Egypt for some time, left, and founded their own state. It existed for over a thousand years and then scattered throughout the world.

Question: Indeed, we see that there was a Temple, its remains have survived, etc. So this is not an allegory, it existed?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So can we say that the Torah is a historical story?

Answer: No. The Torah does not write about history. It writes only about a forty-year period in the life of the people and about what happened before that. It ends at the entrance to the Land of Israel when Moses died. And the passage of the people of Israel across the river Jordan, the entrance to the Land of Israel and its development is no longer the Torah but the Prophets and the Scriptures.

They describe historical periods. These books must be believed despite the fact that perhaps they seem inaccurate or somehow unreal to us. At least their descriptions should be taken seriously and not explanations be made up for them.

The problem is different: people do not understand at all what is written in the Torah. They believe that it indicates how to fulfill the commandments in our world: slaughtering livestock, maintaining various conditions in the Temple, etc.

You need to understand why and for what it is written in this way. It writes only about the inner state of a person, about how he must correct himself in order to become a Temple so that all his still, vegetative, animate, and other “ingredients,” so to speak, mind and heart, thought and desire, come into the right state in order to connect with neighbors and achieve the state of absolute love.

Question: Are all the animals and plants described in the Torah are levels of desire?

Answer: Only that.

Question: Let’s say, making a sacrifice means taking some kind of animal egoistic desire of yours, sacrificing it, and raising it to the level of man. Is this how we should understand it?

Answer: Only that. It is very difficult to understand what the Torah is. If it says that “love your neighbor as yourself” is the most important law of the Torah and everything else, as Hillel said, is just its explanation, where do you see this being fulfilled?

Hence, we understand something else—we do not adhere to the Torah at all, we do not fulfill it, we do not understand its inner meaning—it is not in us.

Question: What does it mean “love your neighbor as yourself” if it is only about me?

Answer: That you have to bring yourself to such a state.

Question: Who is this neighbor in me?

Answer: All your inner states which, it seems to you, exist outside.

Question: Should I love my inner states?

Answer: Yes. And through them the Creator because from love for one’s neighbor, one must come to love for the Creator.

Question: And those people I see outside myself, should I also love them?

Answer: Also outside of yourself—it is a must! By correcting yourself, you must correct your view of the world so that it turns out that you love everyone.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/3/19

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New Requests, Old School

630.2Question: Does inner emptiness manifest in an already developed soul?

Answer: It is not emptiness but a request for the next level of existence, the level of Man.

Man is not an animal. In our world there is inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. We are on the animate level. But who is man then?

There is no man in our world. Man is a completely different being, it is not us. We cannot call ourselves human beings because we only care about our body: how to exist within it.

Comment: Because we do not know anything else.

My Response: Not that we do not know, we do not have a request for it. Therefore, we are also animals, only more highly organized ones, if you can say so.

Question: Let’s say that children are more developed souls. Parents are less developed because they do not have this request. It is good if they try to understand the child somehow. But if they suppress it, take him to psychologists, give him Ritalin?

Answer: Unfortunately, this is a big problem. But such actions will not achieve anything. It means it will take another generation or two before that goes away too. As a result, we will get a terrible generation.

We do not want to be engaged in giving our children a real understanding of the essence of life. We do not want to break the foundations of our schools made according to the conveyor type.

How old is the modern school? A little over a hundred years. Schools began to be created when the production line appeared. Then they began to quickly train workers who would be able to read a little, write a little, understand the orders, understand the conveyor-type machines.

Therefore, the modern school was created in exactly the same flow—to force people there, to train them into workers, and to put them to work on machines. Our education system emerged from that. And to this day, it is the same.

And today the world is different—informational. The needs of our children are completely different, and the school remains the same. Children cannot thrive in it! They just “die” in it.

The school does not educate a person. It fills them with knowledge, completely unnecessary for today. We need a different school, a different education system, a different atmosphere in the school! We must make schools suitable for the new generation! And then there will be no problems with Ritalin.

Maybe it is better for children to run from morning to night, and while running, organize some classes and not sit all day in drills and look at the hated teacher. This is not how things should be organized!

Who says this is correct? Because that is how it was arranged 150 years ago when workers were needed for the assembly-line industry? We do not need it now! How many people are employed in such jobs today? Everything is being rebuilt, everything is changing. And so we need to make the world fit the children who are growing up today, and not prod fit them into our Procrustean bed so they correspond to it.
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From KabTV’s “Close-up. Depression in Children” 8/24/09

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Growth, Not Destruction

552.03Question: We see that each generation that comes into this world is more egoistic and cruder than the previous one. It denies the values of the previous generation. Why?

Answer: It does not deny. It just needs new values.

It seems to us that the next generation should break the previous one. Yet, it does not deal with the destruction of the old one, it just deals with itself and builds a new one. Whereas revolutionaries here and there wanted to destroy everything old, this is what was bad.

However, if it happens not through revolution, but as development in itself, then it involves growth, not destruction.
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From KabTV’s “Close-up. Generation” 8/24/09

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Baal HaSulam—A Revolutionary Scientist

531.02Comment: Baal HaSulam was a revolutionary who performed a dramatic change in the wisdom of Kabbalah. He was strongly hated by some and strongly loved by others, and there was no average attitude toward him.

My Response: Yes, this is true. People who understood him loved him, and those who did not understand him naturally hated him very much. There were even people who used to come to his grave and step on it after he passed away.

Question: Do you think that Baal HaSulam was a revolutionary?

Answer: When I first began to read texts by Baal HaSulam it opened my eyes. I read a lot before that, including the writings of Ramhal, Ramak, the Gaon from Vilnius, and other serious Kabbalists who were popular. They were really great Kabbalists, but I didn’t feel that I received anything from them.

I did not enter their flow and did not understand their language. They did not tell me anything, although I seemingly listened and read books, but it was not the same system of expression that was supposed to clothe unto me.

When I discovered Baal HaSulam, however, I was very impressed by the way he expressed the text, by his system, his revelation, and how he guides the reader by telling him “Look here, look there, now you see the difference, this way or that way,” although I cannot say that I understood everything. It was a feeling of a teacher who studies with you and guides you, plays with you, and answers your questions.

Baal HaSulam’s writings are based mainly on questions and answers. In his articles he first asks questions and then answers them. This is the right thing to do methodically.

Question: You were looking for not a mystical or emotional, but actually for a scientific presentation.

Answer: Yes, of course, only scientific. Everything else was wrong and not true for me, and I thought that I had no need for it and that it was totally unimportant.

Question: How is Baal HaSulam’s modern language expressed scientifically?

Answer: At least in what he said, “In this article I would like to scrutinize these and those questions,” and then listed about 20 questions. Then he gradually clarifies one question after another and arrives at a clear and accurate outcome, and then sums it all up, “to sum up, what we have is this and that.”

As a university graduate and a beginning researcher, this approach was certainly the closest to me and best understood. I understood that he is a serious person and not just some religious person who believes in something and wants to impose his views on me by confusing me. As a methodologist, Baal HaSulam accurately builds a logical chain and a scientific approach.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/10/19

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The Mystery Of The Unification Of The Masculine And Feminine, Part 12

600.02Each Develops on Their Own

Question: What do a husband and wife need to take into account if they begin to study Kabbalah together? How should they help each other and what should they avoid?

Answer: I don’t think that when they study Kabbalah they will immediately want to help each other. Each of them will experience their own states.

It takes a very long time, months, and even years before they begin to understand the possibility of studying together, of putting their spiritual forces into it together. It will take years before they feel that they both have one soul. It is no simple matter.

It will not happen in a day. We are just beginning this path so it is best not to disturb one another. In the beginning each one develops on their own.

Children, for example, cannot play with each other before the age of three. They play on their own, each with their own toys, and if you offer a child to play with someone else, he will not understand it. They don’t have the perception of society yet.

It is the same when we study Kabbalah. When we begin to study Kabbalah, we do not feel others. It overtakes us and seizes each one separately. So we should not disturb each other during this time, but instead try to allow each one to develop independently until we reach a certain level of maturity.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/3/19

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