“Israel’s Hopeless Fight Against Terrorism” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Israel’s Hopeless Fight against Terrorism

Recently, we learned that the US government and the Palestinian Authority have resumed their economic talks after a five-year hiatus. According to the State Department, the talks will revolve around infrastructure development, access to US markets, US regulations, free trade, financial issues, renewable energy, and environmental initiatives. In Israel, some people are concerned that the funds will not go to their stated goals but to fund terrorist activities, while others hope that a higher standard of living for Palestinians will reduce their propensity for terrorism. I think that terrorism stems from hatred and the political goals of those who promote it. Therefore, more or less resources will have no effect on its intensity or frequency.

Look at Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and all the governments in the Near and Middle East. For them, terrorism is a tool, a means to gain power and further their goals. The Palestinians are pawns to be sacrificed when circumstances make it advantageous. For leaders in the Middle East, terrorism is a legitimate means to pressure rivals and enemies, a way to gain control. It is a dirty business, as is the business of funding it.

As for Israel, we have only ourselves to blame, since our internal division weakens us and emboldens our enemies. There is only one thing we can do to protect ourselves: solidify our cohesion, social unity, mutual responsibility and solidarity.

Instead of worrying pointlessly about what others are doing, we should rekindle the spirit of connectedness among ourselves. Otherwise, our “neighbors” will soon oust us. The social rules of the State of Israel must be those that guided us until the ruin of the Temple: mutual responsibility and solidarity. When Maimonides repeatedly emphasizes in his commentaries on the Mishnah that “All of Israel are friends,” he means it not as a metaphor, but to affirm the basis of our nationhood. Without it, we are strangers who have no place on this land since we are not a nation.

The only law that should apply in the State of Israel is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Since we are still unable to live by it, we should at least strive for it. Our progress toward it will justify our presence here.

When we strive for unity and cohesion, we are “a light unto nations.” When we bicker and slander each other, we spread poison and bile throughout the world, for which the world then hates us.

We can make any hostile government or regime behave favorably toward us or the other way around. We do not need to cajole or cajole anyone into accepting us. All we need to do is work on our internal unity. The example we will set will earn us the recognition of the world and make our presence in our country welcome in the eyes of the world.
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Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/24/21

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“An Israel That The World Would Love” (Times Of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “An Israel That the World Would Love

Among the many divisions that plague the Israeli society, one of the fiercest is the dispute between those who want to define Israel as a nation state for all its citizens and those who want to define it as the nation state of the Jews. Currently, the chasm between them seems irreconcilable. There is a way to resolve it in a way that benefits both sides and which the world embraces, but to do that, we must revive the original spirit of Judaism.

Maimonides writes in Mishneh Torah that in ancient Babylon, Abraham discovered that a single force governs nature, but it divides into the two opposites that we experience as day and night, winter and summer, cold and hot, male and female, and so forth. He also discovered that when you realize that the opposites come from a single source, you see how they complement each other and together create our reality and maintain its balance and harmony.

Abraham told what he had discovered to anyone who took interest in his words. In those days, Babylon was in a social crisis and tensions and violence grew among its people. The book Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer details the conflicts that Abraham observed: “They wished to speak each other’s language” as before, but “they did not know each other’s language. What did they do?” asks the book, “They each took his sword and fought one another to death. Indeed,” concludes the book and describes the inevitable outcome: “half the world died there by the sword.”

When Abraham introduced his idea that differences are inherent in nature and complement one another rather than compete with one another, many people in Babylon took to it and Abraham began to garner followers. Gradually, people from all over Babylon united around him. When he moved out of Babylon and headed for Canaan, still more people joined him along the way.

Isaac and Jacob, continues Maimonides in his description in Mishneh Torah, followed in Abraham’s spiritual footsteps. Under their leadership, the alien individuals became a nation united by the idea that opposites complement rather than compete.

These were the ancestors of the people of Israel. They were individuals who came from countless tribes and nations, cared nothing for each other, had no relation or affinity for one another, but believed in the tenet that opposites complement rather than compete, and this is the secret to nature’s vitality and harmony; this is the secret of life.

Eventually, they were called Jews for two reasons: One was that they settled in Judah, and the other was that the Hebrew word Yehudi [Jew] comes from the word Yechudi [united/unique]. The unity-above-oppositeness that they had attained made them a nation and gave them their strength.

Over time, Jews often fell from their sublime perception. When they were overcome by competitiveness and hostility, they became divided and weak, and other nations conquered and tortured them. When they restored their unity above oppositeness, they regained their strength and other nations venerated them.

The current State of Israel is rife with division and replete with clashing opposites. There is no Abraham to tell them to unite above their disputes, that opposites complement rather than compete, and that one-sidedness is their worst enemy. But if we want the State of Israel to persist and for the world to appreciate it, we must nevertheless return to our core tenet of complementary opposites.

Currently, the world hates us because instead of demonstrating how to make opposites complement, we are exporting high tech weaponry and cyberwar software. If we want peace to prevail, we must do it the way we teach Israeli officers to lead: by personal example.

Only if we realize that no one will win the argument over defining Israel as a nation state for all its citizens or only for the Jews since we are meant to complement these opposites rather than win the argument, only then will we be able to make peace among ourselves. And as we do so, we will find that the world welcomes our newly found unity and embraces the idea of unity above divisions. If, however, we insist on division, the world will divest from us, boycott us, and sooner rather than later, the country will dissolve.
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“What Is Up With All The Violence Today?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What is up with all the violence today?

Today’s society has become very individualistic. One phenomenon in relation to today’s society is that in the past, we had more of a sense of belonging to the family, and we were enveloped in a certain kind of calmness, we had different attitudes toward each other.

Today, we have lost that sense of calm. The world consists of nearly eight billion complete strangers. Moreover, we can even feel ourselves as strangers within the same household, with children feeling detached from their parents, and spouses also feeling detached toward each other. We have largely lost our feeling of our household, our family, our relatives, and our fellow citizens in our cities and countries.

Altogether, today we have no feeling of inner connection to other people. Perhaps this is a positive state in relation to our future, i.e. that it is a state of transition toward feeling a global humanity with no differences between people. However, in the meantime, we see that the natural ties that existed between us for thousands of years are being torn.

Another phenomenon is that we are generally under much more stress today because more and more of us cannot keep up with the pace of life. By nature, we are not built for the kinds of stressful lives that we experience in today’s world. Our nervous system cannot function normally at such a fast pace. It is like we are keeping a car engine running at high rpm’s. How long can we keep that up? Eventually, we must decrease the load and take the car for a tune-up. The increasing tendency to commit violence thus also comes as a result of our increasingly individualistic society operating at such a fast pace of life.

Based on the video, “Why Is Violence on the Rise?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Yael Leshed-Harel.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

How To Survive In Retirement?

626Question: A lot of people write to us that it is practically impossible for a person to survive on today’s pension. They try their best, but it’s very hard. Now few people believe the government. They try to put aside something and save up. Thoughts about retirement frighten everyone approaching this age and today even the young ones.

Thoughts of what if I can’t make it and many thoughts surrounding it pervade people.  What kind of thinking should there be in order for a person not to fall into depression, into constant stress? What kind of thought should a person cultivate in himself?

Answer: He must still imagine how little he needs in order to exist, and try to prepare himself for such an existence. So that he could feed himself in this way. And everything else, of course, he must prepare in advance, the place to live and so on.

Question: So, one way or another, think about it in advance?

Answer: Sure.

Question: Let’s say I prepared this for myself. And how to prepare internally?

Answer: It is the same internally, to come to joy that I don’t need anything more.

Question: Is this called “rising above the situation”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And how to come to joy?

Answer: From the fact that I don’t depend on anyone, I don’t depend on anything, I can feel like an absolutely free person. Mostly in spirit. That’s it!

Question: Can I communicate at this moment, as you say, with nature, with the Creator?

Answer: Of course! Especially in this state.

Question: What should my prayer be?

Answer: I turn to the Creator as the only upper force of nature, apart from which there is nothing, and I want to be in mutual, good relations with the Creator. It’s very simple.

Question: And this will come back to the person?

Answer: Sure. Depending on how I relay to Him, I will immediately feel that He is relating to me.

Question: Can it be taken as an exercise to train the spirit like this?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: So you said: “I’m free, I don’t depend on anyone.”

My Response: I have my own place and what I need minimally. And I’m satisfied with that! I think it’s realistic. It is only necessary to give a person an entrance to this inner freedom.

Comment: This is the most important moment. A person constantly is not free.

My Response: Because he makes himself dependent on this world. And he must break away from it and be internally free. It is very important.

Question: And can someone break away?

Answer: Imagine that you are really independent of anything and anyone. This is the way to your own inner freedom, absolute freedom! And to me, from this moment onward, it doesn’t matter what happens. Then I begin to feel completely independent from anything and from anyone. And no matter what happens, I am already in a state of complete disconnection from this world, its limitations and its fears. There is nothing, that’s it!

Question: Is this called that I connect to nature, to the Creator?

Answer: Yes. You gradually restrict your egoism and connect to nature or the Creator, which is the same thing.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 11/15/21

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Eating Alone Is Not Healthy

506.5Question: Researchers from Korea recently concluded that eating alone leads to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.

The study was conducted in 600 women over 65 years of age. It turned out that they have a two and a half times higher risk of developing congestive heart failure, an increased risk of obesity, high blood pressure, and so on. Do you believe this?

Answer: Certainly! Everything that is against the laws of nature is ultimately to our detriment. If we are distancing from each other and do not want to create correct connections, we end up ruining ourselves. Even if we live perhaps ten years longer, they will cause us harm.

Even in the Torah it is said: invite someone to the table, someone who is just passing by in the way Abraham sat in his tent and invited those passing by.

Question: Open your table to others. Is that what we should do?

Answer: Yes, this is what we should do.

Question: You invite somebody to the table and immediately feel good, right?

Answer: Absolutely. Open the tent.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/4/21

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How To Become A Good Father?

627.2

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection (Sigmund Freud).

Question: Do you think this statement is correct?

Answer: It is correct. For a child the father is everything! For a boy, yes. It is biological, it is natural. This is an example!

Question: How can this be connected with the fact that we do not feel our father? Humanity does not feel the Creator, the upper governance, and this is why humanity is like it is. Can I say that?

Answer: Of course! If we felt the Creator as the upper force that generates and defines us at every moment, then naturally we would be different. But that is not possible. Otherwise, we would have no freewill.

Question: So if we felt the Creator, would we feel all this love and goodness and be overwhelmed by them? And that is why we were given freewill?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Were children who either did not have fathers or their fathers were rough given freewill?

Answer: No a child cannot be blamed for anything. He gets into a certain situation and that’s it.

Comment: That is, you adhere to the hard line that for example: if there is a divorce and there are children, especially if they are boys and the father leaves the family, then.

My Response: That is even worse. It is a lifelong trauma.

Question: And we receive questions, mostly from women, who write to us all the time: “What, is it better to have such a cruel father?”

Answer: Not if there is such an atrocity, of course. But a normal, demanding father, even if he goes a little too far is still better than being fatherless.

Question: And how can someone become a good father?

Answer: One must be educated.

Question: Fathers?

Answer: Fathers, from childhood. It is necessary to take people, I would say young men, and try to explain to them what fatherhood is, what taking care of another means, and make good fathers out of them.

Question: And also explain to them that the future of children depends on it?

Answer: Explain everything! Of course! Otherwise it will not work without defining the goal.

Question: So you think it is necessary to create such a school for fathers?

Answer: Yes, it is necessary.

Question: And then, we can correct the future of humanity?

Answer: Of course! We will determine the whole future generation by this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/7/21

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Point Of Individuality

117Question: A perfume company launched a line called “Individuality” One of their advertising pitches was: “If you feel your uniqueness and individuality, if you are absolutely sure that you are unlike others, these perfumes are for you.”

Where does this sense of individuality and the desire for it come from in a person?

Answer: I will not argue with the French about perfumes, and about the way all of them, the individualists, rushed to buy them. Of course, it looks ridiculous. If I am an individualist, will I listen to what the ads tell me? How can this be? On the contrary, I am in the herd, and I am part of it. I run where I am beckoned.

True individualism is inherent in us by nature. Moreover, this is the uppermost quality of a person, since each of us has his own point in the Creator, one’s own root, from which we descended into this world.

We all exist within Him, and each of us has descended through his own thread to our world. This thread connects me to my root, which is in the Creator, and this point in Him is unique.

This is my personal, individual quality, unrelated to anyone or anything else. It is really just mine. The body can die and be born since it is only a garment on my individual point. I need to develop this point within myself.

Therefore Kabbalah gives a person the opportunity to become an absolute individual. After all the most important thing is to identify this point and be connected with it because these are my original qualities; this is me.

I do not depict myself relative to others, but I look at myself, at my point, which is in the Creator, and how I can make sure that I am completely connected with it. Then through it I will begin to feel the Creator, I will feel how I can be equal, similar, to Him, but in an individual way, specifically me.

It is said that when a person gives account for his life after death, he is asked only one thing: “Have you achieved the realization of your individuality?” Nothing else. You do not have to be like the saints, or the great ones, or the beau monde, or anyone or anything. You are standing as if naked, already without this world, and you are asked if you have realized yourself.

Question: It seems to a person that he looks at the world through the prism of his body, his five senses. It turns out that he looks at the world through his soul. Is that why each of us has an individual perception?

Answer: The perception of our world and the perception of the upper world are individual because each of us has his own spiritual root, his own source, his own point from which we are born. Although we exist in the same world and seemingly perceive it in the same way, still everyone perceives everything in their own way.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up: Individualist” 1/15/10

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What Will Change Our Reality?

571.03Question: Can we say that the female part is seemingly animate relative to the male part and that the male part represents a higher or “human” degree?

Answer: If male and female parts complement each other correctly, then a “centaur” is born, sort of a combination of an animal and a person in a human.

Question: How can we make this combination correctly? If two people strive for spirituality, does everything get harmonized by itself?

Answer: This is not easy to implement In our world.

We are just now starting this path. There are still a lot of pitfalls ahead. But I hope that in the end, all divorces, discords, family breakdowns, separation of children from their parents, a person’s hatred even toward oneself, drugs, and those wild fanaticisms that we see (and in the future will see even bigger ones) can be resolved, and this is only if we begin to strive for a higher goal.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Centaurs” 1/15/10

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Is There A Connection Between Miracles And Prophecy?

276.01Question: Is there any connection between miracles and prophecy?

Answer: A prophet is a person who is in properties above the egoistic properties of our world and he sees the next stages of the development of the world.

Question: Let’s say a person predicts some events. For example, two years ago you said that the coronavirus will stay with us for a long time. Today we see that this is indeed the case. Is this a prophecy?

Answer: No. These are just certain feelings of the laws of nature.

Question: Is it not a miracle when you feel what other people do not?

Answer: This happens in the same way like with an adult and a child. An adult feels more, understands more, and can warn a child about things. For the child, it would be like a miracle but nothing more. We all exist within the framework of nature, and only different levels of its comprehension dictate all the prophecies, knowledge, and wisdom.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/30/21

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