Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/4/21
Posted on June 4th, 2021
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My new article on Linkedin “Time to Sober Up”
Israel is on the threshold of a new era. Until now, we have been celebrating like reckless children, slaves to our egos, and we have caused a lot of damage. That time is over. Operation Guardian of the Walls marked its end, and the emergence of a new government is the inauguration of a new period. It is time to sober up. In my eyes, this period should be about one thing: recognition of evil—the realization of all that is wrong with us and why we cannot stop the downhill slide.
We have no choice but to start building a new spirit in this country, a spirit of unity above all our differences, as it is written, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezek. 36:26). With a spirit of unity and with a caring heart, we must begin to build a new country.
Our country is in a shameful state. The whole world is mocking us; we have become its laughingstock. Everyone hates us, no one wants to recognize our right to live here, and all they want is to use our intellect and technological abilities as much as they can, but no one wants to be near us.
This pitiful state can be a springboard for positive change, if we are brave enough to make it, but it can also escalate into complete alienation where the whole world unites against us. The only thing that can prevent this horrifying scenario is our own unity. If we unite, the world will unite around us; if we remain scornful toward each other, the world will unite against us.
A new government marks the beginning of the new state, but we mustn’t think that this state has anything to do with technology or policy. The beginning of the new state must show the beginning of unity among us. On the current trajectory, the world will turn against us so intensely that we will not want to stay here but we will have nowhere to run; we will not be permitted to go anywhere.
We have no choice but to start building a new spirit in this country, a spirit of unity above all our differences, as it is written, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezek. 36:26). With a spirit of unity and with a caring heart, we must begin to build a new country.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the book ”Zohar” about?“
The Book of Zohar is an internal commentary on the Torah. The most important effect of The Zohar is that we attract the illumination of the upper light upon us when we read it with a correct intention. This illumination is the reason for its being called “Zohar,” which means “radiance.”
This light that we draw through the reading of The Zohar enlightens us and brings us to a state where we start “floating” along with its flow of words, letters and sentences.
According to what we read, we change internally. The impressions we receive are different from those of a novel. They are rather changes that take place within.
Accordingly, the more we advance in our correct reading of The Zohar, the more we include within ourselves the transformations that the Book describes. Eventually, such a process of attainment leads us to the final point of our evolution: complete adhesion and merging with the Creator.
When we first approach The Zohar, we may feel no impact from its reading. However, the impact is taking place without our feeling it for the time being. This is why the first period of reading The Zohar is considered preparation. We practice absorbing what The Zohar wants to give us while we read, hear and try to understand it.
During the period of preparing ourselves for attaining what The Zohar describes, we undergo development in forces, qualities and thoughts. After some time of undergoing this latent stage while reading The Zohar, we will afterward start feeling the phenomena it describes. It is a relatively long and complicated period because we have no clue as to the extent to which we need to change in order to truly understand and feel what is in The Zohar.
And this book shall be called The Book of Zohar due to the influence of that Light from the Upper Radiance [Zohar]. Through its Light, all who engage in it impart by Divine Providence, for the Upper Light and abundance above the reason would was imparted in the secrets of the Torah. Since it flowed from there, this composition was called The Book of Zohar, meaning that it extended from that Zohar [Radiance]. – Ramak , Know the God of Thy Father, 2
Based on KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #8 with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
If you’re interested in finding out more about The Zohar, then we recommend starting with the following course: Enter the Zohar.
Question: The Kabbalists have a saying: “He Is One and His Name, One.” Is this a state or a law?
Answer: “He Is One and His Name, One” means that the Creator manifests in His name. And His name is a state where a lot of people (a ten or more) can connect, coordinate, and consolidate with each other in such a way that they will represent one single whole in terms of bestowing and supporting each other. In such a single field, the global force of this field, called the Creator, will manifest itself.
The Creator himself is concealed. This phenomenon cannot be detected but only through the sensor that is a gathering of people connected in a way as to form such a field in common bestowal, in common love, in common good relationship. That is what is called: “A field that the Lord has blessed.” And then He manifests Himself in this field.
Like, for example, we have a lot of bacteria on our hands, but we don’t see them. And if we take a microscope, we can see. It is the same here.
Question: So there are some connections between us, but they are hidden from us?
Answer: There are connections between people, but these connections are bad. They are not like the quality of the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love, and therefore, the Creator is concealed. We conceal Him with our wrong relationships.
Question: By nature, I want to receive, I was created this way. And even if I give, it is in order to receive. Is this the wrong connection?
Answer: This connection is natural, we were born with it. It is called egoism. And we must gradually change it to another connection, the opposite of it.
Question: And what should I do?
Answer: Think about others and about the connection between us so that this connection is predominant, main, defining. And then we will begin to feel the Creator in it.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 5/25/21
Related Material:
Discovering The Field Of The Creator
“On That Day Shall The Lord Be One, And His Name One.”
Names Of The Creator—The Measure Of Spiritual Ascent
My new article on Linkedin “Way Ahead of Everyone”
A student told me a joke he had read on the internet: Israel is way ahead of everyone. While the rest of the world is still grappling with Covid-19, Israel is already two disasters ahead—the Mt. Meron stampede disaster and the military campaign against Hamas. Gallows humor isn’t funny, nor is it meant to be. It does, however, point directly to the truth. In our case, the truth is that we are not learning from experience, and this is why we suffer.
Instead of examining why Covid-19 came to us, we tried to get rid of it as quickly as we could so we could get on with our lives. Covid gave us time to think, but instead of thinking why we got it, we thought only about what we will do when it is gone. So now that we got over it, we’re taking other blows since we didn’t learn the message that Covid came to teach us—that the problem is in our relation toward each other.
This, indeed, is our core illness: our poor relationships, sickened by ill-will. Because we didn’t learn it through Covid, we suffered blows in the form of the Meron disaster, the Guardian of the Walls campaign, and the riots of the Arabs all over Israel. At the current pace, the next blow is right around the corner.
The only change I do see from our “pre-Covid” days is that we are not so attached to our jobs anymore, or even to the concept of work as we thought of it before. We have learned to let go of the rat race, and this is a good sign. Nevertheless, it is far too little to make a real change.
A positive change in our lives will come only when we learn to focus on our connections with each other and try to build a society where people are responsible for one another and care for one another. If we stop wanting to feel superior, and start wanting to feel connected, it will affect the entire world.
Since human beings are at the top of the pyramid, everything we do or say, but mainly think, trickles down to all other levels of reality. When we have bad thoughts about each other, it produces bad results on every level of reality. By wishing harm to others, we tilt the world off balance and bad things begin to happen. If we think about it for a moment, we will realize that no other being bears ill-will toward other beings. But we, humans, bear plenty of it. In fact, we bear nothing but ill-will, as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21).
Therefore, if the only being that bears ill-will toward others stops wishing others harm and begins to wish them well, everything will change accordingly. If we change our thoughts from bad to good, we won’t need to advance from bad to worse; we will go from good to better.
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My new article on Linkedin “David and Goliath – Reversed”
We all know and love the story about David and Goliath. It’s very easy to sympathize with little redhead David who stands up to the giant villain, Goliath, defeats him against all odds, and saves Israel from the wicked Philistines. But in the past few decades, it seems as though the roles have been reversed, and Israel, who was once the favorite since it was the underdog, has become the Goliath in the area, the villain that the poor Palestinians are fighting against all odds.
It’s not as if Israel is trying to slay Palestinians indiscriminately. In fact, no army has ever come close to the efforts that the IDF is doing to avoid hurting uninvolved persons. The other party, Hamas, sends rockets explicitly indiscriminately into civilian residential neighborhoods in towns and settlements all across Israel, yet the world sees only one villain in the conflict: Israel.
Is the world blind? Does all of humanity not see the truth? The world isn’t blind; it sees the truth very clearly, and precisely because of it, it sides with Hamas. Its real grievance against the State of Israel is not that we are attacking the Gaza Strip, but that we are not letting Hamas annihilate us. The world thinks that this is what we deserve, since being the most developed, we are supposed to lead the world to a better place, and since the world is not going there, it is our fault, and Hamas is only serving us a well deserved punishment.
Regrettably for us, we are not doing the one thing that will change the world’s mind about us: to lead the world to an unselfish way of life. With our selfish, egocentric manner of existence, we are causing the eruption of egoism throughout the human race, at every level and in every direction, and this is what causes all the catastrophes that the world has been experiencing.
No one consciously chooses to be antisemitic. The most developed part of anything is always its head. Since human nature is selfish to the core, as in the verse, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21), and Jews are the most developed nation, they are also the most selfish. Since the head determines what happens in the body, and the head is selfish, the whole world becomes tainted with selfishness, and it’s the fault of the head, namely the Jews. This is why from the perspective of the world, Hamas has every right to shoot at us, we have no right to shoot back, and if it kills civilian Israelis, it is doing so on behalf of all of humanity, and it is our fault that it is doing so.
If this explanation seems far-fetched, look at reality: The whole world sides with Hamas; the UN is accusing exclusively Israel of genocide; countries from around the world have already pledged to give Hamas more than a billion dollars to repair the damages from the campaign, even though Hamas stated that the damages were only 350 million dollars; and Israel’s status in the world is plunging while that of Hamas is soaring simply because it stood up to us—the David-turned-Goliath, in the eyes of the world.
It does not have to be this way. Just as we are tainting the world with egoism today by simply being egoistic, we will clean it up by not being so. And just as the nations feel that their struggles among themselves are because of the ill-will we install in them, when we are unselfish, they will feel that their spirit of friendship and care comes from us.
In antiquity, the equation was very clear: During the time of the Second Temple, around the 3rd century BC, the Jews were relatively united and got along well with one another. At that time, scholars from Greece came to learn from the prophets, Ptolemy II, King of Egypt, summoned 70 sages from Jerusalem to teach him the wisdom of the Jews and to translate the Pentateuch, and people from all the nations would flock to Jerusalem during the three annual pilgrimages when Jews would assemble there. Philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote that people watched in awe how “in the merging of the hearts … they would find the ultimate proof of unity.”
The world is learning from us by example. If we behave like bullies toward each other, they behave like bullies toward each other and blame us for it. If we behave toward each other with care and compassion, so will all the nations treat each other and will thank us for it. This is what the rabid antisemite Vasily Shulgin meant when he wrote that if the Jews, whom he hated more than anything, “rise to the height to which they apparently climbed [in antiquity] … immediately, all nations will request, ‘Give us Jewish [instruction], wise, benevolent, leading us to the good.’”
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My new article on Linkedin “Finding Peace of Mind”
Today’s reality gives us little reason for peace of mind. Uncertainty prevails everywhere, and the future is bleak. It seems like the best idea would be to find a little cabin in the boondocks of the Australian backcountry or the Canadian far north with a few farm animals and forget about the world. What a shame that most of us can’t do this, though.
Here in Israel, we think that if we didn’t have to fight against our neighbors, everything would be just fine. In truth, however, it would be far, far worse! We, Jews, would consume one another. If anything, it seems as though we were given enemies from above in order to prevent us from annihilating one another. The more we hate each other, the more they hate us, which in turn prevents us from destroying one another.
This is clearly unsustainable. The only way to find peace of mind in today’s world is to annihilate the hatred among us. Mutual hatred is destroying us, destroying our relationships, destroying our planet, and destroying our future. Just as we are currently teaching ourselves to compete against others as hard as we can and strive to reach the top of the heap, we must teach ourselves to be caring, considerate, and kind.
It is okay that we are not really like that; it is only the beginning. But if we don’t begin to cultivate concern, we will never achieve it. Instead, we will continue to fight and destroy one another until we destroy humanity. On the other hand, if we begin to work on kindness, consideration, and caring, we will learn how to nurture these qualities within us. In the process, we will change all of humanity not only in our generation, but for posterity, as well. We’ve never had a generation whose members were genuinely kind to one another. If we create the precedent, it will be that much easier to maintain that pro-social attitude since we will witness its benefits.
We think that we are separate beings, but we are not. In truth, we are all connected and influence each other whether or not we realize it. If we infuse humanity with ill-will, we will hurt ourselves, as well, even if we do it in order to protect ourselves from others. Conversely, if we infuse the system with kindness, kindness will spread through the system and return to us. And if we all do this toward each other, we will bid farewell to problems.
The key to finding peace of mind is not to run away from society, but to improve it so that everyone concentrates on giving others peace of mind. Only in this way, through a system of mutual responsibility, we will find lasting, solid, and joyful peace of mind in life, now and in the future.
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My new article on Linkedin “Let’s Pollute Mars, Too”
Every so often, tycoons such as Elon Musk come up with another craze that has to do with inhabiting Mars. According to the magazine SciTechDaily, “Elon Musk has claimed he’s confident there will be a city of 1 million on Mars by 2050, transported there by 1000 Starships proposed by his SpaceX venture.” I understand that playing with spaceships can be fun for multi billionaires, but it isn’t going to help humanity, it won’t make our lives any better, or teach us anything about life itself.
What’s worse, it will replicate the damage we have done to Earth on Mars. Because living elsewhere will not make us different people, we will bring to Mars the exact same flaws in our nature that have caused us to ransack and deplete our home planet to the point where we are looking for another planet to inhabit. Living on Mars will not make us caring people, considerate toward each other and to nature. The exploitation that has destroyed human society and our natural environment will do the same to Mars, so anyone who moves there will be just as discontented as those who stay here, if not more so.
In general, research into new colonies, prolonging life expectancy, and other such fanciful fields of exploration do nothing but plant false hopes in people’s hearts that somehow they will be happier, when the opposite is true. On Mars, a planet that is unsuitable for sustaining humans, life will clearly be far more difficult than on Earth. Likewise, if we could live much longer than today thanks to scientific developments, it will only prolong our misery. We don’t know what to do with ourselves in the eighty years we have now, let alone in 800 years. People will kill themselves or one another; futility will drive them out of their minds.
If people want to improve the quality of their lives, they have to begin by asking what they’re living for. Most people aren’t in that place yet, but it will come. When it does, they will discover that life is not about inhabiting new planets or spending 800 years traveling around the world and eating in fancy restaurants, but that life is about connecting to the people around us and to the environment we live in. They will begin to nurture deeper and deeper connections with each other until they reach a point where the physical body becomes meaningless, and life is no longer bound by the existence of our protein body.
This is the future that awaits us. We can make it happen that much sooner if we focus on cultivating our connections here and now, or we can look for happiness on Mars. If we choose the first option, we will begin to feel the positive change at once. If we choose the second one, happiness will remain a long way out.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are we all one consciousness?“
Nature relates to humanity as a single and whole system. Our current perspective, however, is fragmented because we are detached in our sensation from nature’s wholeness.
Nature is a pure altruistic quality, whereas our nature is the opposite—egoistic. In other words, nature relates to us in a manner of giving and love, and our attitude is opposite, where we wish to enjoy on account of each other and nature.
Accordingly, even though nature relates to us as a single whole, we make no such distinction, and exist in constant opposition to nature. Our opposition to nature is also the cause of all problems and suffering we experience.
However, nature is developing us to a state where our egoism will be replaced with nature’s altruistic quality, and we will then fully perceive ourselves—all of humanity—as a single consciousness. When we reach this shift in consciousness, we will discover a new harmonious existence that comes from abiding by nature’s laws.
We are currently in a transition from our individualistic egoistic consciousness to an altruistic consciousness that is balanced with nature, however our desires have yet to ripen sufficiently to such a level.
In order to aid and accelerate this inevitable shift in consciousness, so that we experience it enjoyably and with awareness, we need to learn the wisdom of connection. The wisdom of connection explains how nature functions in an altruistic manner, how our nature is opposite, and how we can make the shift from perceiving ourselves as separate egoistic beings to perceiving ourselves as a single system and soul that is balanced with nature. Without such learning, we can expect more and more suffering and problems to enter our lives, as the human ego will continue growing in opposition to nature.
Based on the online lesson “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 17, 2019.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
In our world, it is very difficult to shift the emphasis, the goal, from the significance of the material to the significance of relations between people.
We definitely need to develop a sense of relationship, not to what is in the hands, not to material things, but to the correspondence between them, to their interaction, because the spiritual world begins with relationships, with interactions. It does not belong to anything material.
The material is everything that seems to us in our egoism. When our relationships turn into bestowal and a person gradually enters this property, tries to push off from himself and be in bestowal, not connected to himself, then the spiritual world begins.
Comments: Still something is missing here because it is important to people how others treat them. They are even ready to give their lives to be respected.
Answer: But only until the moment when a person begins to value spiritual relationships.
Question: It is important how I treat others, not how they treat me?
Answer: Yes. How they treat me I understand: to the extent that others agree with me or disagree, to the extent that they benefit from the fact that I exist, or vice versa.
And how I treat others is up to me.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 5/25/21
Related Material:
Human Nature And Good Deeds
The Essence Of Human Nature
Freedom Is A Way Out Of Egoism
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