Audio Version Of The Blog – 10/7/21
Posted on October 7th, 2021
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My new article on Linkedin “The Eyes of the Wise”
When we look at the world’s political map, we see two lines that are trying to annihilate one another: the right line and the left line. They alternate in dominance and their struggles are growing increasingly ferocious and destructive. But when we look at the rest of nature, there is no war there, but complementation. Even the struggles strengthen the rivaling parties and make them healthier. Clearly, we are missing something.
Balanced progress must always contain two sides: right and left. The right side is the tendency toward stability and tradition, toward making tomorrow the same as today. The left side is the tendency to revolutionize, innovate, to probe the future. When the two sides complement each other, society can draw better conclusions, make more accurate decisions, and move forward successfully.
“The eyes of the wise are in his head” (Ecclesiastes 2:14), said King Solomon. In other words, while nature is always pushing us forward, we must strive to understand its disposition and prepare for it. When we do not prepare, misfortunes surprise us and the distress forces us to search for protection. Because nature always evolves, maintaining stability tomorrow requires that we prepare for the future today. This is the right combination between the right line and the left line, and it is called “advancing on the middle line.”
Maintaining the middle line is challenging since the human ego constantly changes and evolves. The more we develop, the more our senses demand new excitements and we feel greater hunger for pleasure and satisfaction. At the same time, our world is growing increasingly connected and any movement that one person makes influences all other people. We have become mutually dependent while our alienation from each other is intensifying.
To survive the 21st century, we will have no choice but to establish global educational systems that will teach us the middle line between catering to our growing egos and the necessity to be considerate of others. Unless we learn how to find a constructive middle ground, nature will force us to do so through pressure and pain.
Back in the 1930s, the great kabbalist and thinker Baal HaSulam wrote in his inspiring essay “Peace in the World”: “In our generation, when each person is aided for his happiness by all the countries in the world, the individual unwittingly becomes enslaved to the whole world, like a wheel in a machine. …Although this is, in fact, known and felt, still people in the world have not yet grasped it properly. Why? Because such is the conduct of development in nature: The act comes before the understanding, and only actions will prove and push humanity forward.”
Therefore, we have no time to waste. If we want a welcoming tomorrow, we must work on it today.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Enigmatic Impact of the Jews on Nations”
Last month, some 300 courageous Iraqi leaders, both Shiite and Sunni, called on the government to join the Abraham Accords, normalize ties with Israel, and repeal the law prohibiting civilian ties between Iraqis and Israelis. I am all for peace and good relations, but regrettably, at the moment, it does not seem like the Iraqi government is willing to become a real partner for it. In fact, the government has already issued orders of arrest to some of the participants in the declaration.
There used to be a flourishing Jewish community in Iraq, which contributed to the thriving of the country. Today, without the Jews, it is a shadow of itself. When acclaimed German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart wished to describe the impact of the Jews on Europe, he articulated himself in a manner that suits many other places, too. In his book The Jews and Modern Capitalism, he wrote: “Israel passes over Europe like the sun: at its coming new life bursts forth; at its going all falls into decay.”
Leaders have always known this impact of the Jews and attempted to use it to their benefit. In the 15th century, the Ottoman Sultan, Bayezid II, was delighted at the Jews’ expulsion from Spain and their arrival in Turkey. In his book History of Jewish Literature: The Jewish Center of Culture in the Ottoman Empire, historian Israel Zinberg writes in this regard: “When King Ferdinand, who expelled the Jews from Spain, was mentioned in [the sultan’s] presence, he said: ‘How can you consider King Ferdinand a wise ruler when he impoverished his own land and enriched ours?’”
In some cases, manipulation of the economic power of the Jews was not as overt. It is said that when the US pressured the Soviet Union to let its Jews leave for the West, it was not so much because it wanted to help the Jews, but more because it wanted to weaken the Soviet Union. The latter, which was quite aware of the power of the Jews, did not let them out. It also quelled any display of overt antisemitism in the USSR in order not to scare the Jews away.
The Iraqi leaders who convened last month are well aware of it. Wissam al-Hardan, a Sunni tribal leader from Anbar province in Iraq, said that the expulsion of Iraq’s Jews was “the most infamous act” in the country’s decline. Likewise, Dr. Sahr al-Ta’i, an Iraqi advocate of normalizing ties with Israel, said that “Israel today … is a strong country and an inseparable part of the world and the United Nations. Iraq cannot neglect this fact and live in isolation from the world.”
While all the above is impressive, we should also note that wherever Jews are welcome first, they are eventually rejected and expelled. There are good reasons for both phenomena.
The Jews bear within them a special trait, a spiritual force that derives from our illustrious past when we were connected among each other and therefore connected to all of reality. The power of the Jews is the power of unity, the power of caring for each other “as one man with one heart,” the power of mutual responsibility.
Today, even though we have lost our love for one another, we still carry within us a spark of the power we had had in antiquity. That spark makes us unique. It allows us to thrive within any society where we live. However, because we have fallen from the state of loving others, we use it to our benefit instead of for the benefit of the entire society. This is why at first, everyone welcomes us and we contribute to the prosperity of our host country, due to the hidden spark within us, but in the end we are expelled, when our host realizes it’s been used and manipulated to benefit the Jews.
Just as it happened in Spain, Germany, and basically everywhere we went, it will happen in the US. As long as we behave the same, the result will be the same. It is just as one famous Jew, Albert Einstein, once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
The good intentions of the Iraqi leaders will therefore not lead to anything positive. Peace with Israel is not in their hands, but in ours. If we decide to make peace among ourselves and renew the love of others that we once possessed, we will project it to the nations and the world will prosper. If we continue to detest one another and maintain our selfish attitude, the world will accuse us of selfishness and banish us from the family of nations.
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My new article on Linkedin “It is OK that the US Cares Only about Itself”
Since World War II, America has been almost perpetually engaged in some sort of war. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention meddling in Cuba, and countless other overt and covert military and political occasions of American involvement in other countries. Indeed, there is substance to America’s moniker, “the world’s policeman,” as an op-ed in The New York Times called it. Ironically, America is doing all this only because it wants peace and quiet. It has no real interest in policing the world. If it could, it would remain aloof, as it did at the beginning of World War II. For America, this indeed would be its best decision.
With two docile neighbors, Canada to its north and Mexico to its south, an ocean to the west and an ocean to the east, the US has very little to worry about. It is a vast country, with hundreds of millions of people, robust manufacturing systems, the most advanced scientific institutions and facilities in the world, and abundant natural resources. If any country can be self-sufficient, it is the United States.
Americans are brought up to relate first and foremost, if not exclusively, to America. They are taught very little about the rest of the world, and I can understand why. Were it not for the aspirations of other world powers to challenge America’s position as a world leader, it would probably choose not to interfere in global affairs.
But for all their efforts, the US is still the dream country for most people. This is why despite its social crisis and economic (relative) weakness, it is still such an attraction for millions of immigrants crossing thousands of miles to get there from Latin America. This is also why almost every scientist would want to relocate to the US given the appropriate conditions.
As for the rest of the world, things are much more precarious. China is pitched against Russia, claiming that vast swaths of land belong to it. Craftily, it is sending Chinese workers who settle in those lands and marry local Russians. This will become a big problem in the future.
There is also the matter of Muslim areas in southern Russia and to the south of Russia, which will now form alliances with Afghanistan and pose a problem for Russia. In the future, Russia will not be able to control those republics that used to be part of the Soviet Union. Between those three—Russia, China, and the growing dominance of Islam—is where I see the future dangers.
But not only there. Tensions that have long been considered gone seem to emerge these days, when the ego reigns supreme in human society. The recent friction between France and the UK and US over the nuclear submarine deal with Australia is one example of it, but I feel that there is more to come in this area.
Despite the looming dangers, we can prevent a worldwide eruption, if we want. We can decide that two world wars were enough, and we want humanity to take a different course, a more caring and collaborative one. But do we want it? Currently, it doesn’t seem that way.
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Comment: Our viewers asked you to comment on your haiku.
Observe your external enemies,
Uncover your internal enemies,
And win!
My Response: Yes. It is precisely the internal enemies that you reveal and conquer.
Question: How do I reveal them through the external ones? Right now I am surrounded by external enemies, everything, including nature and my neighbors.
Answer: Try and see why these external enemies surround you. Try to determine that this is a consequence of your inner enemies, which are inside you, your unbalanced properties: envy, jealousy, hatred, greed, and so on. All your egoistic properties, of which there are many, are projected onto the surrounding world.
If you want to live in balance with the world around you, you need to balance yourself inside and not be in such a contradiction with yourself. You must love all your properties equally and, in accordance with this, love everyone outside yourself so that you feel at peace inside yourself and with the world around you.
And first of all, this is done at the level of interconnection with people, and then with the animal, vegetative, and inanimate world.
Question: That is, I have placed myself in this laboratory, called “humanity,” and in it I have to work in order to change myself? And then I will change everything around me?
Answer: Yes. But you didn’t place yourself, you were put here. And you should reveal your inner enemies and defeat them. That is, you have to overcome them. You must contact them correctly. And then the external enemies will disappear, dissolve as enemies.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/29/21
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We need to understand that we do not see anything in the spiritual process, as if we have lost consciousness. We are absolutely cut off from the spiritual world and if we want to return to consciousness, we must fulfill what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches: to detach ourselves from our egoism and integrate in someone else’s desire, outside of ourselves.
A foreign desire is the desire of the Creator, which is absolutely opposite to me, and therefore I cannot jump into it. How can I jump from myself into the Creator? To do this, I have been given a tool: the group.
The upper light spreads through four stages from top to bottom along the Sefirot—Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut—and inside Malchut builds the desire to receive. And in order to jump into the light, I have to climb the same steps back up.
If I gather a group and annul myself in front of them as Malchut toward the first higher Sefirot, then I express my desire to become like Keter. It turns out that I jump from my side to the side of the Creator with the help of the ten, the group. This is the whole patent.
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From the International Kabbalah Convention 9/25/21, “Entering Impregnation – Revealing a New World”, Lesson 1
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Everyone has states where he wants to escape from the spiritual path, give up studying, and move away from his friends. These states are given specifically to teach us. Like teaching a baby to walk, the parent takes a step back and the child loses his support and cries. But there is no way out and he is forced to take a step forward.
That is how the Creator teaches us. He wants us to learn to stand firmly on two legs and go forward on them. We must understand that even the left leg, the left line, which pushes us away from spirituality, is also given for our benefit, in order to advance.
Therefore, the rejections we feel in life are never given to push us off the spiritual path, but on the contrary, only for advancement. We only need to overcome a little more, to invest a little more strength and try not to forget that this is how the Creator teaches us to walk.
The group should hold the person in its arms all the time to serve as the right environment that supports him and does not let him forget that we are advancing in this form on two legs. It is impossible to walk on one leg.
Therefore, everything comes from above and only for the sake of our advancement. This means that even the worst conditions also contribute to advancement. It is possible to take a step forward from any state to a better state if we do not choose a more pleasant one but a more useful and effective one to advance toward the goal of creation.
Then we will see that we always have an opportunity to move in this direction. The Creator always opens the way for us to rise above egoism and get closer to the goal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/30/21, “Baal HaSulam. Shamati 10. What is “Hurry, My Beloved,” in the Work?”
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Comment: Some project that by 2030 people will not own anything and will rent everything they want: goods, services, housing, cars, almost everything. Much will be provided by subscription.
It sounds kind of strange. We always wanted a garden, a vegetable patch, a house to pass on to our children, so that something would be mine, permanent. And suddenly they forecast that all this will slowly die off. This is how humanity will live.
My Response: In order for this to happen by 2030, it is necessary for a lot of things to happen in advance. There is a lot of realization in private property, in work, in the connection between people – in all this. In relation to the family, to children, to the country. All these natural connections of people between themselves: the community, the country, the town, everything there is!
We do not even imagine that all this still lives in us. We give it all away and transfer it from ourselves for the benefit of society, in doing that I transfer myself for the benefit of society.
Comment: And I would live just leasing, I would rent everything.
My Response: It’s not about renting. The fact is that at the same time I shift, I give my future into someone else’s hands. Do they have to be strangers? Or should they be like a child in its mother’s arms? This is a huge difference!
I can’t believe that it will be by 2030.
Question: But do you think that you really need to somehow cut yourself off from egoism?
Answer: The fact that you need to cut yourself off is certain. The fact that people will want to cut it off from themselves through suffering or by the way of the upper light is also surely certain.
When? Sooner or later it will happen. The trend is there, it is planned, it has existed since the creation of the world and it cannot be changed in any way. It is this tendency that leads this whole world in a certain direction.
Comment: Which means, I give up my personal property that I acquired and transfer it to the kind, warm hands of my friends, the country that takes care of me, and I live renting, and I rent everything. No one cheats me, and so on.
My Response: It will be, absolutely! We are getting closer to this every day, but not at this pace.
But if there are already those who say this… they have always said it…the very first societies were communist.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/22/21
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These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the (houses of) the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel, divided for an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the Lord, at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And they made an end of dividing the land. (Joshua 19:51)
The common desire that the Creator created and attracts to Himself so that it can attain Him should work the same way as the Creator, on the quality of bestowal and love, and must act the same way as we do in the group. When we unite in a group we can understand how we relate to the Creator with the help of our common desire, intention, practice, and experience.
It turns out that without realizing this connection, we will not be able to turn to the Creator. We won’t even know what to address and how to address it. Therefore each tribe must work on its part in order to gather and turn to the Creator precisely from its common collective desire. And then they will all unite together into a common nation.
A person should sort out all his desires and build them in such a way that he starts with small desires, and then with their help moves to all the big ones so that they are directed to the connection between him and others. And then based on this state, from these actions, from this experience, he can already understand how to turn to the Creator.
Question: What does “small desires” mean?
Answer: These are minor egoistic desires that I can handle. And there are those with which I am not able to work yet and I know that I cannot. But it is precisely because I work with small desires that I get closer to big ones.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/16/21
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Preparation to the Lesson
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #14 “What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator”
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 60
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Selected Highlights
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
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