Question: How can I be useful to my ten?

Answer: To be useful to your ten is to give it a good example that I give myself completely to it and that despite any disagreements, I love all my friends.

I want to support everyone in the ten in everything: in the greatness of the goal, in the greatness of our mission, in making the connection between us more precious than anything else in the world.

When I position myself in this way in regard to the ten, I give them my strength, my inspiration, my goal. What they receive from me as a result and act further is already my continuation in them. If each one in the ten works like this, we will very quickly have the correct connection, and in it, we will reveal the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “Videoconference”

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Question: What is the middle line in a person?

Answer: The middle line in a person is one’s soul. If a person closed the right and left lines in himself, then in this way he would burn the rudiments of his soul that are intended for his development.

Question: What is the middle line in society?

Answer: In society there should be laws that would help a person, would educate him in such a way that he will think only about others and not about himself. In this case, all his actions would be virtuous and encouraged by society and he would receive an appropriate reward for this.

If he did not act for the good of everyone but only for his own sake, he would be punished. Then the reward and punishment by the correct society would educate him.

The middle line inside a person is his screen, the anti-egoistic force, which enables him to absorb both his natural egoistic property, to receive for his own sake, and the altruistic property that manifests itself in us, which is a part of the Creator.

The middle line in a corrected society is the laws that could balance these two forces.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/23/21

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Because any observation of the work of Creation is enough to teach us about the greatness and perfection of its Operator and Creator. Therefore, we must understand and be very careful when casting a flaw in any item of Creation, saying it is redundant and superfluous, as that would be slander about its Operator. (Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”)

When we look at something in the world, at human characteristics, at still, vegetative, animate, and speaking phenomena and ask why it exists because it would be preferable if it didn’t exist, what we are saying is that we don’t understand the perfection of the image of nature.

The only thing that we must do is correct ourselves and then we will see how nature is corrected.

Why are natural forms found at odds with each other, in struggle, and eating each other? If people who want to eat each other would achieve a state of mutual accommodation and wholeness on the human level, we would see how all of nature also becomes like this.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/7/19

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Comment: A letter was sent to you: “We have been living together for almost 30 years—quite a long time. We have two children, our daily life is settled, we have jobs, enough money, everything is fine. But love is gone, everything is very ordinary, without scandals, without love that used to burn.

“We have even been to a psychologist, we did all sorts of exercises that he advised, but we are still cold and quiet; we are dead. What should we do? Please tell us. We are writing to you together. Can we bring back the old relationship or at least get close to it?”—Alexander and Nadezhda

My Response: It is very difficult, but it is possible if we are serious about each other and make some kind of contract that we will constantly take care of one another, show how much we love each other, and treasure our mutual cooperation.

It is impossible, of course, to have the same feelings, the same states that we once had when we were young, when it was all new, and so on. However, they should not fade.

They should just grow precisely because of the fact that we constantly try to show each other our care. Love gives way to mutual concern.

Question: Is this what happens over the years?

Answer: Of course. Then you do not need to be on fire, you should somehow try to please the other.

Question: Is this a game? This is not even real.

Answer: It is a game. So what? All our life is a game.

Question: Will it lead to feelings?

Answer: It does not need to lead anywhere. The correct relationship is when we consciously, above our egoism, treat each other with care and consideration.

Question: Do I know that I am playing?

Answer: I specifically know, and this is why I can do it beautifully and well, and I love this state. It is because, first of all, I do it against my egoism. Second, I constantly show my partner that I am doing this for him, that I am even doing it against my egoistic desire, and that I am pleased that I am doing it against my egoism.

This point is very precise. Therefore, I do not have to lie. After all, it is clear that when I come home we no longer look at each other. He looks at the refrigerator, at the TV, at the bed, and that’s it!  And here…

Comment: You are already preparing yourself in front of the door that you will now enter with a smile and say: “Hello, my love.”

My Response: Yes. This is how it should be. Also, during the day, you should sound and talk in this way. Fill your life with this game. But do not overplay it. It should simply be an even attitude by which you show the other that you care about him.

Question: What happens then? You say that love is like this!

Answer: This is not love. It is mutual care for each other when you want the other to feel good next to you.

Question: Will both of them feel good then?

Answer: Of course. You buy his good attitude with this.

Question: So, is your advice to turn it into mutual care?

Answer: There is no other way at all! Or you can artificially pretend that you are still in love and like in a ballet fly toward each other! By this, you create a warm cloud or a relationship field.

This is called “A man and a woman, if they are rewarded, the Shechina [Divinity] is between them.”

Question: What is the Shechina here?

Answer: The state that they give birth to and cultivate between them, and it then manifests itself as something independent, outside of them, and begins to bind them together and raise them both to another degree.

Question: Does it mean that by this they reveal the Creator?

Answer: Of course. After all, they work above their egoism. This is a very difficult, real work.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/28/21

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Question: Does a person who is in the spiritual world that has revealed the force called Balaam (serpent) understand why this absolutely incredible metamorphosis happens in him?

Answer: He feels and understands that negative qualities are revealed in him: this is Balaam, and this is Pharaoh, this is Balak, and this is Haman, and so on. He knows exactly what quality is being manifested in him at the time.

These are high degrees to which a person advances as if on two legs, left and right, and moves forward. He corrects the unfolding egoism and rises above it. Then egoism is revealed in him again, and he rises above it again.

Comment: It turns out that a Kabbalist, by ascending higher and higher, reveals something more, even that which we may not know in our egoism: where the serpent is, where Balaam is.

My Response: Of course if we are only at the level of our world, then this serpent has nothing to do with us. Talk to people. They do not feel like they are egoists! And if so, then these are everyday, generally accepted toys: robbing, killing, and deceiving.

This is not the egoism with which we work in the spiritual world. A completely different form of egoism is there. We have no idea what it could be. It seems to us that egoism exists only between us in our earthly relationships.

But the real egoism is directed against the Creator. The real egoism is when I want to enslave the Creator, use Him, like in the fairy tale “The Fisherman and the Golden Fish,” “She wants you to be her own servant, to follow her commands and her errands.”

The Creator, on one hand, plays with us through the serpent, and on the other hand, directly through himself. As a result, He allows us to play with him as an adult plays with a child and the child as if uses him.

But He does this so that the child receives properties and forces from Him, then again falls into egoism, and by absorbing it, he grows.

This is a good theatrical action that you have to go through. This is what we live for. It makes a person out of you because you begin to include within you, not our world, but two huge spiritual forces: the light and the force opposite to it. By correctly combining them in you, you acquire the form of the Creator. Therefore, man, Adam, is translated as “similar to the Creator.” This is the state we must achieve.

And the serpent Balaam and all these negative qualities, everything that we go through in this world, help us in this. We just need to know how to work with them correctly.

And if, while studying Kabbalah, we have additional opportunities, then to this extent even greater negative properties will be revealed in us. We will know who the serpent is: Balaam, Pharaoh. All the properties will be revealed in us and we will rise above them and become spiritual.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #16

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Annulling Before the Upper One, Part 1” 

Lesson on the Topic “Annulling Before the Upper One, Part 2”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

Selected Highlights

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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

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In the News (BBC.com): “Trials of a four-day week in Iceland were an ‘overwhelming success’ and led to many workers moving to shorter hours, researchers have said.

My Response: Iceland is not a place for this experiment. This doesn’t prove to the world that a four-day week works.

They are all frozen people in no hurry. I remember what struck me when I arrived there. From the plane you go to the airport building and from the airport building to the street. No stamps, no controls. You are free to go wherever you want! It is just incredible!

Question: Where is customs? Where is border control and border guards?

Answer: There is nothing! There is no such thing at all! It was so unexpected!

Question: So is that the character of the people?

Answer: And the character of the nation. They each have 200 – 300 sheep, their own house, and not just one. They have a house they live in and a couple of houses that they rent to tourists. And each of these houses is fully equipped including an open-air sauna with snow all around and so on.

Question: Do you think that even a three-day week would do for such a country?

Answer: It doesn’t matter. This is not a place for experiments. They are self-sufficient, they are at peace.

Question: And how do you feel about this experiment that everyone in the world is talking about, a four-day working week?

Answer: What, you want to free a man from his work? What will he do?

I don’t think this will give humanity what is seemingly expected. We must clearly educate people to a new lifestyle. And in general, we should have started doing this a long time ago.

Question: What kind of lifestyle?

Answer: When one will have a lot of free time aside from necessary work. And today, he clogs this time with unnecessary work, pollutes the earth, the environment, and so on.

We need to make sure that this person uses his time correctly for self-improvement, to become human and to study how to get closer to other people because this is the correction of the world.

It is a job. And it is necessary to make it so that it is a real job, and not that it is three days off and you can do what you want.

Question: So one is never free from this work of connection with others? Is this a full-time job? Like at a company, at home, and in general, all the time?

Answer: Yes. It does not matter where or what.

Question: And one is always in this work of building connections with each other, good relations?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/8/21

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Hiroshima Remembrance Day commemorates the victims of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima that occurred 76 years ago; it makes one think and feel horrified at the possibility of a new nuclear war. Baal HaSulam writes that if we do not come to unity through which we would draw a positive force into the world from above, then third and fourth world wars may break out and at least one of them will be nuclear.

There are many movies about what would happen if nuclear war breaks out: a world in ruins and a handful of people miraculously survivor and wander the earth and don’t know where to go.

If it comes to such a collapse, people will loose their human appearance and will turn into animals. They will use all the strength they have left only to survive and suffer less. And they will behave toward each other accordingly. I do not envy those who survive such a war.

Many countries today possess nuclear weapons, and what can be done to prevent those weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists? There is only one solution: connection and unity between all.

For example, if the United States, Russia, and China could unite, then these three major powers could keep the whole world in order and prevent anyone from starting a war. But today such connection is impossible because everyone is in their own egoism. We need a “virus” that will destroy our egoism, and then no one will think about war but will only dream of a quiet life.

Unfortunately, no one is interested in such a “virus,” but each seeks to raise their egoism as high as possible. Israel is obliged to give such a method of correction to the world, but so far, this is impossible because it is moving in the opposite direction. Therefore, the world is gradually sliding toward nuclear war.

If Israel does not bring people to connection, which is its duty, then it will cause their separation, which will become more and more aggravated until it explodes in a war.

We must change direction and take a course toward unity. In Israel, people who understand that it is necessary to lead the world to unity must awaken. We can only hope for such awakening.
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From KabTV’s “ A Look from the Inside” 8/9/21

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My new article on Linkedin “National Unity Day – An Alibi for More Division”

A suggested National Unity Day is garnering support on all sides of the political spectrum in Israel. The day, which started as an initiative to commemorate the memory of three teenagers who were kidnapped and slain by terrorists, has evolved into emphasizing the value of unity, giving, and mutual responsibility throughout the country and with all Jews all over the world. I am happy to see that unity is on the agenda, but in my eyes, dedicating a day to unity is nothing but a permit for division for the rest of the 364 days. Unity must be our daily work. Every day when we do not try to strengthen our unity is a day when we are not the people of Israel.

Unity is our motto. We forged our nationhood by agreeing to unite “as one man with one heart,” and all our struggles from the inception of our people to the ruin of the Second Temple were efforts to unite the people. Our nation did not arise the way other nations do. We started as an aggregate of strangers who followed Abraham because of his idea that kindness and love of others are the keys to a good life. Over time, as we practiced these qualities among ourselves, we forged unity. Gradually, the assortment of strangers became a nation.

But it was a nation like no other: Whenever unity prevailed among us, we felt as a nation and our unity shone as a beacon of hope that all of humanity might one day be united, just as we succeeded in doing despite our different origins. Whenever division took over, we became a throng of strangers pressed together against their will, and we reverted to mutual hatred that no other nation exhibited. In those times, we were the epitome of evil, the nations loathed and despised us, and wanted to do away with us. In the end, we succumbed to hatred and the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and exiled us for the next two millennia.

Now that we are back in the land of Israel and have established a Jewish state, it is our duty to work on unity every single day. It is our obligation to the world to reignite the beacon of hope, to show that strangers can form a bond that is stronger than any other connection, and that peace is not an empty slogan but a feasible aspiration. Dedicating one day a year to this most sacred task, to the vocation of our people, is a mockery of our calling. What will we do the rest of the year, hate one another as we do today?

A National Unity Day is an alibi for more division; we need the genuine article. Anything less than true bonding of hearts will not do. Unless we strive to be “as one man with one heart,” as our vocation mandates, we will not be the authentic people of Israel, the nation that hallowed the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and which the entire world is anxious to see arise.
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