My new article on Linkedin “When I Look at Them I See My Fault”

I look at the state that our nation should be in, “as one man with one heart,” and the state we are actually in—unwilling to recognize each other—and it pains me. When I look at our politicians, I see the state of our nation. Since they represent the people, their relationships reflect the relationships among the people: No one is friendly; no one even bothers to be politically correct.

Look at the Knesset, our parliament, and see where we are: Each with a knife behind the back or in the pocket, very similar to the days preceding the ruin of the Temple. This is what unfounded hatred looks like, and we know where it is leading.

Even worse, when I look at what is happening around the world, at all the hatred that prevails the world over, I know the ruin among them points to the ruin among us. When I see what is happening in Russia, Germany, or Poland, at the yelling and corruption that we see in every government, I see that I am the cause; I am the cause. I don’t look at them and say, “It’s not so bad; we have that, too.” No, I know that I am the reason it is happening to them, and I must be the reason that they will connect “as one man with one heart” through the example that our people should give them.

I have no grievances against anyone but myself. I know that I, and the whole of the Jewish people, can tilt the world for better or for worse through our internal unity or separation. This is what our sages have always told us; this is what our history throughout the centuries has shown us; and only our obstinacy prevents us from recognizing the obvious truth.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can cities help fix gangs and gang violence?“

We need to shift our focus to teaching and promoting the science about the purpose of human life. When we reach the understanding that we live in a single system that leads us to a life of perfection, absolute fulfillment, happiness and balance with nature, above our bodily life, then we will shift our concern from our bodies to our soul, i.e., to what is outside of us.

Then, instead of focusing on how to enjoy for personal benefit alone, we will think about how we can give to others and exit our egoistic way of life. We will appreciate and aspire to altruism, and by our general focus heading in a new giving direction, we will start feeling a completely different life. Instead of our current lives that we feel as several transient fleeting moments, we will feel nature in its unfiltered state: as an eternal and perfect flow of life.

This is where we need to bring humanity, and especially the younger generation. Only thanks to the education and spreading of such wisdom, if done successfully, will we gain the ability to overcome the evil that exists in the world, including the negative phenomena in big cities, the force of the fist that is accepted among several youth in their ghettos.

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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The work in ascents and descents is given to us from above, from the Creator, who pushes us to this work. Sometimes He reveals a new will to receive to us that was hidden inside and forces us to fall, then He helps us rise and explore our egoism in the upper light, in the will for bestowal.

Ascents and descents alternately reveal increasing egoistic desires and an increasing desire for bestowal so we get to know ourselves and the whole creation. We study our nature compared to the nature of the Creator and get an opportunity to advance toward Him by combining one with the other.

All this comes as a result of ascents and descents. Therefore, a lot of preparation is needed. Patience is needed in order to go through many thousands of ascents and descents until the very end of correction where the highest ascent occurs, preceded by the lowest descent.

The further we advance along the spiritual path toward correction, the deeper the descents and higher the ascents become. The Creator created one against the other for us, and we move forward studying His work as the advantage of light from darkness.

It always happens only in such a contrasting form: the greater the darkness, then the more light is revealed. The time axis that leads us to the end of correction takes us along a sinusoid (sine wave)—from ever greater descents to ever greater ascents where plus and minus always correspond to each other in absolute magnitude.

Therefore, the whole work is comprised of accepting the descents, trying to annul oneself, to bend down, as it is said about King David: “O Lord…You hid Your countenance and I became frightened.” And in fact, it is unpleasant when each time weakness, indifference, and disappointment overcome us in a new way. That is, new forms of lack of desire for spirituality are revealed. But then an ascent comes, gives us more strength, clarifies the past descent, and allows us to justify it.

Therefore, it is necessary to learn one thing from the other. This study does not end until the very end of correction as the advantage of light out of darkness. The more darkness manifests itself in all its forms, the more light and elevation unfolds after it. And thus we get to know the light, the ascent, the Creator, the forms of nearing Him precisely in contrast with the forms of distance and darkness that were in the descent.

It is said about Rabbi Shimon that he felt like just Shimon, a simple merchant in the market, an ordinary person. And then he realized that this descent was so significant that apparently after it, there would be a special, unusually high ascent.

This is how we should try to hold ourselves through the ascents and descents so that these two forms will support each other, because one is impossible without the other.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/21, “Working in Ascents and Descents”

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Maimomides (Rambam) writes that our world is below the axis of time and the spiritual world is above time. Therefore, as we move closer to spirituality, we suddenly begin to feel that one second is a very long time. We can fit many events into the period from the beginning of one second to its end.

In modern technology, devices work at high frequencies and are able to process millions of impulses per second, which they could not do before. The spiritual world is way above modern technology and works at an infinite frequency. Therefore, there are no short moments in spirituality, and every moment there is infinite.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/21, “Working in Ascents and Descents”

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Question: Is it possible to teach a person that the team is more important than himself?

Answer: We see this in examples of people who work in special teams—in submarines or with climbers—in general, those who are constantly faced with the question of survival depending on their connection in the team. They hold on to each other so much that they are ready to give their lives if their friends die.

Question: In principle, are we talking about the fact that the whole process of upbringing is a change of an egocentric worldview to an altruistic one, even without going beyond our nature?

Answer: Yes, it is still within the framework of selfishness.

Comment: But we can see that this does not work. No matter how much they tried to educate us in kindergarten and in school.

My Response: They did not work on us properly. A person can be made into such a being who will see his destiny only in serving its collective. This usually works in small, closed groups when a person identifies his existence with the collective so much that if the collective dies, he also dies. He cannot exist without them.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/25/21

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Comment: Ann-Sofie Hermansson, formerly mayor of the Swedish city Gothenburg, retired from politics at the age of 56. She has connections everywhere and had a vast choice of positions, yet she choose to drive a garbage truck.

My Response: Well done! She is a smart woman!

Comment: Her dad once told her: “Daughter, you need to have a real profession in life.” Now she has an opportunity to use it. She says: “The responsibility is the same, just without meetings and phone calls.”

My Response: This is a Swedish character.

Comment: How do you like this decision of a person who was in politics, to suddenly leave everything behind?

My Response: This person understands that all this politics is such dirt and it needs to be washed away.

Question: Is this why she became a garbage truck driver?

Answer: Yes. Very good. What else do you need? You get up early, finish your working day early and you are free.

Question: What is it that attracts people to politics, to all this dirt?

Answer: This is petty egoism. Maybe it will be transformed into something somehow, but I cannot see this yet. Look how everyone tries to climb everywhere, and how much they fight and pay for it. Everything is around politics—money, the media, whatever you want!

Question: What do you think? Is it possible to compare: to give a person a role in politics and give him the opportunity to work somewhere for a year, and then decide where he will go? I wonder what he would choose.

Answer: There is nothing you can do, his egoism decides this.

Question: Are you saying that a person cannot escape from this?

Answer: No, you cannot escape from fate.

Question: What conclusion can we draw from this?

Answer: The conclusion is very simple. Make your way into politics, but think about the fact that it would be nice to work on a garbage truck and clean up the city.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/31/21

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Question: You talk a lot about anti-Semitism and you even wrote the book  From Chaos to Harmony: The Solution to the Global Crisis According to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. In addition, books have been published by some of your students, in particular, Anti-Semitism as a Law of Nature: A book for Jews but not only  by Michael Brushtein and Time to Gather Stones by Mikhail Palatnik. What is this layer of books?

Answer: These are books that talk about the application of Kabbalah in our world, about how we should influence our destiny and the destiny of humanity.

Antisemitism is not a problem for the Jewish people. This is a problem of the world. Humanity does not understand the historical mission of the Jews and Kabbalah explains it. So, here we just take Kabbalah and try to find out what it says about our world.

Antisemitism is not some kind of emotional attitude of the peoples of the world toward Jews. Kabbalah tells us where these people came from, why they are hated, why they are to blame for not being loved, why they do not fulfill their historical mission, etc. It completely overturns the attitude toward antisemitism and explains that this is a law of nature.
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From KabTV’s”Questions about Kabbalistic Books” 10/22/19

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Question: What misconceptions (beliefs) that affect a person’s life and prevent one from advancing to a higher cognition are characteristic of a modern person?

Answer: We are examining the conceptual apparatus of the world from the point of view of our current consciousness. How can we approach this from the other side? Where is the second part of our consciousness, the opposite one?

Kabbalah immediately begins to investigate the opposite attitude to an object, to an idea, to something that is happening.

It tells a person: currently you are looking at everything from the point of view of your subjective feelings and egoistic concepts, which you received from nature, and you should adopt another point of view, an altruistic one.

Will you be able to elevate yourself to the level where you as if get out of yourself to love your neighbor instead of yourself, to give instead of take, and so on? Change your attitude to the opposite one. What kind of world will you feel then, what solution will you find to this problem?

Then compare these two solutions and see what you get. Perhaps you will find something in between them in which both these approaches, these solutions, will complement each other and lead you to a certain common denominator.
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From KabTV’s “Together about the Main Thing” 9/2/18

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Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”

Selected Highlights

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