My new article on Linkedin “Disasters Will Hunt Jews Until Unity Is Achieved”

In a race against time, emergency workers try to find survivors of a residential building that collapsed days ago in Surfside near Miami, Florida. More than 150 people are still unaccounted for and the death toll rises every day. This tragedy knocks at the door in a neighborhood with a growing Jewish community, a community now in shock and disbelief at the disaster. Finally, the question arises of why it is that Jews are again at the heart of a new blow?

The cause of the collapse is still unknown, but according to the New York Times, almost three years ago an engineer expressed concerns about structural damage to the building that required renovations but which were never implemented. Whatever the reason, there is one undeniable fact: the Jews are at the center of yet another disaster. These are no longer obscure clues and signs but accumulating facts, a chain of events that connect and raise many question marks.

A recent stampede at the religious pilgrimage to Mount Meron in Israel—believed to be the largest single annual Jewish event in the world—left 45 people dead and over 150 wounded. A fatal collapse of a synagogue bleacher in Jerusalem on Shavuot night and other series of events prior to the tragedy in Florida have one common denominator: the Jews.

Using words as arrows to make their point, our sages wrote about the reason for Jewish afflictions: “No calamity comes to the world but for Israel,” (Yevamot, 63a.) The unfounded hatred which was the root cause of the destruction of the First and Second Temples is also characteristic of the Jewish people these days.

The Book of Zohar states that when separation prevails among the people of Israel, “They bring about the existence of poverty, ruin, and robbery, looting, killing, and destructions in the world” (Tikkuney Zohar, No. 30).

The breakage in our relationships as Jews is akin to the building collapse in Florida. When Jews fall into separation and do not lean toward oneness above all differences, then the cracks in their structural basis as a people weaken and their troubles increase, manifesting in different and unexpected ways.

Brotherly love among the Jewish people evokes a positive force with the capacity to neutralize all evil. This power corrects, straightens, settles, and balances reality as a whole.

An excruciating path would be to ignore the warning signs and delay the call for Jewish unity—the force which has been the foundation of the Jewish people since time immemorial. If Jews continue along the path of mutual hatred, they will gnaw away their cohesion until their bedrock is undermined and destroyed. Conversely, it is written in the book Maor VaShemesh, “The prime defense against calamity is love and unity. When there are love, unity, and friendship between each other in Israel, no calamity can come over them.”

Until Jews wake up and reach a common concern for one another, following an educational campaign that will bring Jews closer together and later all the people in the world, many more disasters will continue to befall them. That’s an annoying and infuriating truth. However, there is also a way to reverse the situation: through a real change of attitude toward each other, through unity as the pillar, as the precondition to shake off predicaments and thrive as a people, Jews can escape troubles. As the great Rav Kook wrote, “Since we were ruined by unfounded hatred and the world was ruined with us, we will be rebuilt by unfounded love and the world will be rebuilt with us.” (Orot Kodesh [Sacred Lights]).
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who was directly responsible for the AIDS/HIV epidemic facing Africa today?“

The spreading of AIDS in Africa is the culpability of the developed countries, which forcefully introduced their culture and values, and by doing so, corrupted the natural culture and the development by which African countries, as well as other countries, should have developed.

European nations committed a great injustice when they attempted to forcefully bring their values into other countries of the world, and therefore separated them from their own traditions, and from their natural evolution and development.

This is why they elicited such conditions in which AIDS, hunger, inequality and dictatorship develop, characteristic of the third world countries today.

This is why I think that by helping countries return to their nature, to their natural development, we can reach a favorable and harmonious development among all nations, countries and humanity as a whole, in a positive and equal manner. It is not that the countries themselves should be equal, but everyone should have an equal opportunity to develop favorably, each nation according to its own nature. This is how we could reach global harmony, and in the process, we will see such illnesses and epidemics as AIDS decrease.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Any state can only be corrected by our connection; this is the only means. We again find ourselves in the next wave of the pandemic, which is manifesting and intensifying all over the world. I warned at the very beginning of the coronavirus pandemic that it would not end quickly. Therefore, I believe that vaccinations should not be neglected.

It is necessary to follow the principle “the doctor is given permission to heal” despite all shortcomings we know about medicine as well as its advantages. Medicine cannot be better than the people for whom it is intended. Doctors are not angels, and all shortcomings that exist in medicine are exactly what we need as uncorrected egoists.

If we were better, we would be cured by other methods, with the help of the light. In the meantime, we have to be treated with the same light but clothed in chemicals. Therefore, you need to listen to the doctors.

Take an example from my teacher Rabash. Every week we would visit a doctor: an ophthalmologist, a dermatologist, an otolaryngologist. He meticulously followed their instructions. And these were traditional doctors, not some miracle healers. He approached this issue very simply, materialistically.

I warned in advance that the coronavirus would not disappear so easily, that it would return. Now there is its second or third wave, and you will see how many more such waves there will be. Therefore, it is worth getting vaccinated: the only way we go together both in material and in spiritual form according to the principle “the doctor is given permission to heal.” The very doctor who belongs to the uncorrected medicine is the most suitable for our uncorrected qualities.

Correct your properties into spiritual ones, and material medicine will also change for the better. But for now, we get what we deserve, one matches the other. And this happens in everything, in any life situation. We will become more corrected, and our world will be corrected. The air, water, and natural conditions will improve, volcanoes and typhoons will subside. It all depends on our internal state.

And this should be approached from a spiritual, not from a material, point of view without inventing your own methods of correction and healing.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/21, “Advance by Overcoming”

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Question: Are restrictions in managing any collective obstacles or a lifeline?

Answer: The restrictions should be within the person himself based on how much he is connected with the general collective in one single whole so that in no case does he leave it and solve any issues individually. This is the only time he can do any harm. Everything else is beneficial.

At the place where his altruistic connection with the collective ends and his egoistic connection can begin, he must place some kind of a barrier, a power shield, so that he cannot go beyond the limits of the collective, of commonality, mutuality, and the feeling of all as one whole.

This is the force of the collective that holds a person. We are mastering it in our groups and I can see how success is gradually beginning to show itself.
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From KabTV’s “Science of Management”

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Question: You say that it is necessary to bring city-dwellers to some degree of integration because nature is leading us to this.

What kind of integration is it? Is it when very different people still come to some degree of connection with each other? Can you explain what you mean by connection between city-dwellers?

Answer: Connection between people does not necessarily have to be in the city because this connection will arise from direct tactile contact, physical communication.

Today we see people sitting at the same table in a cafe talk to each other through phones. They have become used to communicating with each other through a keyboard.

A person sees how new types of communication affect him, he gets used to them, and he wants to be connected to others through some kind of device that will simultaneously supply him with all kinds of data, pictures, and anything you like, so that he can diversify the contact with each other with musical inserts, etc.

That is, relationships between people will increasingly pass through the systems we invent. They will allow us to better understand each other and tune into each other.

And we will not run away from this somewhere in the forest, yell, and look for connections with each other in that way.

The communication that exists between us today through all kinds of devices will improve and help us communicate faster. In general, we will take the good things we have now and everything that is not needed will gradually be forgotten and removed.

Question: Do you think a person is moving more toward communication through the Internet and using devices over some kind of physical limitations?

Answer: And what can we give each other with our physical limitations? That I must necessarily see a person? Maybe I will be in such a contact with him where I do not need to see or hear him. I must reach some kind of connection with him but so that it is as complete as possible and in the form in which I want it to be received. It can be different for everyone.

I think that our devices are increasingly leading us to the fact that we want to be more connected to each other internally. And then we will see that they do not help us in this either. They only lead us to this decision.

In addition, a purely physical connection between us also does not give anything. It does not decide anything between people or between governments. On the contrary, it leads us to lie to others, to distance ourselves from them despite the fact that outwardly we do not show it at all.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations” 6/9/21

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Question: Do you think it is possible to increase people’s happiness index in the existing conditions of cities?

Answer: I do not know. Today they build such houses with large rooms on the first floor: an equipped gym, rooms for holding all kinds of events (birthdays and others), a place for mother and child. If necessary, you can organize a kindergarten there and anything you want.

After all, they do try to equip high-rise buildings like small cities so that you would barely need to leave them.

I think that nature will eventually force people to respect the environment more and more and in accordance with the relationships between people, houses will be planned that will meet the trends toward rapprochement and distancing between them.

However, it is not easy. First of all, we need to educate people, and then in accordance with the level of their perception of the correct education, when they become more suitable for each other, we can somehow arrange them into groups.

Once in Moscow, they tried to build high-rise buildings for certain types of people: for architects, or musicians, or engineers, and so on. In our time, however, I do not know.

It is hard to say what the cities of the future will be like. People will begin to feel a spiritual need for being close to each other in order to feel more connected and draw spiritual elevations from it, not in the form of floors, but in the form of spiritual ascent. There is room for a stretch of the imagination here.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations” 6/9/21

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Prophets, Joshua, Chapter 2:1: And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men out of Shittim to spy secretly, saying, Go see the land and Jericho.

Joshua sends spies to the land of Israel for two reasons: the first, in order to know in advance where they are going and the second, to be afraid of the place where they are going because huge new desires are revealed there.

If you can overpower them, then you can conquer the land of Israel, that is, choose those desires that the egoism holds in itself with horrendous force, snatch them from it, and use them for bestowal.

Question: If earlier this verification was not successful because the spies came and said: “We are unable to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we,” is it possible now?

Answer: Yes. However, this is not just another check, but a correction. Therefore, this is not just some action, some game just in case. This is a very serious job.

Frankly speaking, if I imagine the state of being at the entrance to the land of Israel, then I get scared because these are such huge internal egoistic obstacles that shake a person and he must overcome them. But how? Where to get strength from? Unbelievable!

Question: What is the city of Jericho within us?

Answer: It is a terrible city. To this day, it is very problematic. There was even a prophecy that it should not be restored. As you drive up to it, you see what an alien and ancient this place is.

That is, it is a place that is practically impossible to correct. It really is on the border between impurity (Klipa) and holiness (Kedusha). Therefore, Jericho must fall first.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/11/21

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“Prophets,” Joshua, Chapter 1, items 2-3: Moses my servant has died; and now arise cross this Jordan, you and all this nation, to the land which I give the children of Israel. Every place on which the soles of your feet will tread I have given to you, as I have spoken to Moses.

Question: What is this border Jordan within a person that we must cross in order to enter the state of the last generation?

Answer: This is the border behind which nature begins to demand from us the fulfillment of new, additional spiritual laws. If earlier, before entering the land of Israel, we could behave at a certain, rather mediocre level of communication, then, crossing this border, we can no longer act like this.

These borders are very clearly marked on all sides: depending on when you enter, how you enter, from which side. However, in principle, the laws of the land of Israel (Eretz Israel) mean crossing not physical, but spiritual borders.

This crossing does not take place somewhere in the mountains or on land, but within a person, when he feels that, from this point onward, he should direct all his thoughts only to the Creator and only to the quality of bestowal. If we do this, then we will indeed cross the border and enter the land of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/19/21

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Question: What are the expectations of a slave who despite the threat to his life remains loyal to the king?

Answer: It is a very good question, but you are asking it on an egoistic level: “How much should I receive to sell-out the king? And up to that level, I will remain loyal to him.” Or in other words: “How much is the king worth? Where is the borderline when the slave will sell the king?”

There is no such borderline! The slave says: “You can kill me, but I will not give up the king!”

Question: Where does he get such force?

Answer: From the king. A man cannot have such power. A person can part with life. See how easily people leave their corporeal body: they fight, they get killed, they die, they jump from high places to their death.

But according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, corporeal life is totally irrelevant. It is about eternity. Actual eternity. No matter what you propose to me, in whatever manner, I will not relinquish the king.

But this happens gradually. This attribute is called the light of Hassadim in which a person begins to reveal the upper world. In other words, the upper world is revealed to him only to the degree of his loyalty to the king.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/24/19

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Question: Lately evil thoughts that I could not even imagine before have been entering my mind. How should I relate to them and how should I work with them?

Answer: Everything stems from the ego, which has always been in you but is now gradually being revealed, and you have to fight it a little. The best thing, however, is to turn to the Creator above them. Here everything is very simple. It is a very good thing that such evil thoughts are starting to emerge in you.

I personally am very happy when such evil thoughts emerge in me because if these thoughts are revealed, it means that they were already in me and now are revealed in order to disappear from the world later on. They are felt like an illness before it recedes, which should be felt very sharply.

So, you should be glad about what is happening.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/24/19

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