Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What would happen to the Jews in Israel if it became Palestine again?“

This question was discussed at the Promise of the Hereafter Conference that took place recently in Gaza. The conferences’ attendees spoke of the disappearance of the State of Israel as a historic event that would take place in a few years, and the conference’s discourse centered on how to deal with the Jews that would remain in the land after Palestine’s liberation.

First, why is the question of eliminating the Jewish state a desirable topic for a conference?

It is because we Jews have yet to learn who we truly are, and instead of realizing our roots—to come together in common love and connection—we relate to each other divisively and egoistically. While we behave as a divided people, then our enemies see it possible to make us disappear from the world.

Until we realize the need to change ourselves, to know what our purpose, role and obligation is in the world—to positively connect with each other in order to bring about a new, harmonious and peaceful world—then the world will feel us increasingly as the root of their problems, relating increasingly negatively toward us.

Therefore, if we emphasized our becoming a united nation that acts as a positive example of unity, care and love, and which projects positive connection, harmony and peace throughout humanity, then the discussion about us would shift. Instead of talking about how to deal with the Jews in a liberated Palestine, people would instead discuss how to reach the kinds of positive, harmonious and peaceful relations that the Jews project.

Based on the video “What Would Happen to Israel’s Jews if Israel Ceased to Exist?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Why does one individual feel others more while another only feels himself?

Answer: It depends on the root of the soul. There is nothing we can do here, since it was set initially.

I do not see that humanity can correct itself. Day after day we slide off the former framework; it is getting worse and worse and that is taken for granted even though a couple of years ago it seemed terrible to us.

But if a person begins to engage in his perfection with the help of Kabbalah, that is, if he invokes a certain force of nature that created him, then it also changes him.

During life we ​​can somehow limit ourselves and be afraid of something, but in principle we do not change. And Kabbalah proposes to develop a person so that he feels free in his changes. You need to bring a person to a state where you give him complete freedom—do what you want—but at the same time he becomes an absolutely useful, perfect element of society.

Kabbalah is set with this goal. That’s why it exists.

To bring a person to love for his neighbor—all issues are resolved by this. If he treats others as himself and at the same time rises to the level of the Creator, the most perfect force of nature, then he does not need any judges; he is his own judge, his own guard.
[291889]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Presumption of innocence” 3/10/10

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Question: There are two legal systems in the world now. One originated in ancient Rome and is called codified law, and the entire list of crimes with maximum and minimum sanctions are clearly established in it. The second system is what is called judicial precedent, when a certain case once took place in history and the judge makes a decision based on it. But neither system is successful because crime is growing all the time. Why does crime continue to grow despite the fact that the legal system is evolving?

Answer: I understand lawyers. They are trying to somehow put society in order with the help of laws, restrictions, punishments, and rewards. This is the system of governance of society where it transcends the framework it set for itself.

However this is all temporary and conditional because we are changing the framework too. What used to seem like a great crime is now considered the norm. Whatever is accepted by society as something ordinary you can no longer treat as a special crime. The principle of Roman law does not work today at all. We cannot take their directions and treat a modern person according to them.

Look at how all values, attitudes to life, and attitudes to misconduct change from generation to generation. Therefore this whole system, of course, also needs constant change. But if we were in some kind of general consensus, we would understand which changes to accept as the norm and which not to accept.

Once it was believed that if someone spat at a distance of five meters from me, he insulted me. I would challenge him to a duel, kill him, and everyone would think I am a hero. Now there is no such framework. Who sets the framework for each level, for each person?

Besides, by nature we are completely different in our inherent properties. What is easy for one person to accomplish can be very difficult for another and vice versa.

There are people who try to fulfill the social framework and want to be on good terms with others. And this framework, this code, exists within them.

This is not so for the others. It is very difficult for them to agree with this. They have such an inner excitement that they do not feel others existing on par with them, but only below them.

The attitude to the world, to life, is so different for everyone that the establishment of a legal code and system of punishments does not take into account the person himself. No matter how hard a judge tries, he cannot perceive it. He does not understand the inner essence of a person, his natural inclinations, his genes, and does not take into account his upbringing and what happened to him during his formation. This is why we do more harm than good in this system.

Yet there is no solution. Kabbalah says if we want to evaluate a person correctly, we should evaluate him only through his soul. And who can do it?

Until our world reaches the spiritual level, when we all begin to feel the connection between each other in our souls, it will be uncorrected and ugly, and we will disfigure it more and more with the help of this supposedly just system of governance, the system of reward and punishment.
[291814]
From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Presumption of innocence” 4/27/10

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic: “Summary of Convention” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #213 “Acknowledging the Desire”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #237 “For Man Shall Not See Me and Live”

Selected Highlights 

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Annulment before the friends is the key, cornerstone, basic, important, but very incomprehensible topic to us.

It will appear between us always with new characteristics until the end of our path to such an extent that we will not even understand where this all comes from, that again and again I have to annul myself before the friends and be included in them, until I completely lose myself in others.

Only in this way will I get closer to the Creator. Therefore, it is said that the Creator stands behind the friends. It is a great action of the Creator that He created such a means by which we can understand Him, approach Him, and reveal Him.

He created an opportunity for us; through uniting with our friends, annulling ourselves before them, becoming included in them, getting lost in them, and dissolving in them, we can approach the Creator.

In principle, this is all one and the same because we can do nothing regarding the Creator in any way. And the Creator created such an environment for us in relation to which we can do the work of annulling our egoism, moreover, to see and feel clearly, in action, how with my heart and mind I approach them, feel, and understand them more.

It is enough for me to do this even in my small group in order to feel the Creator after successful, correct work, and to start working in a group with new feelings, desires, data, properties, and forces.

Therefore, a group of friends is not something superfluous and irrelevant. It is no coincidence that there are so many of us in the world. This is precisely the main action of the Creator, that He not just created man, but made it so that man could be surrounded by other people and be in contact with them to start to feel how much his ego needs them, and how he could change his state in relation to them and give all of himself to them, to his ten.

This is our most important task: the possibility of gaining a spiritual quality from zero, the smallest one, up to complete merging, connection between everyone and with the Creator.

All this happens only through connection within a small group and then with more and more people until the whole of humanity enters such a state.

Therefore, it is not simply annulment before the friends but also inclusion with them. That is, our egoism should be annulled and the opposite property or force should grow out of egoism to replace it: bestowal, love, connection, inclusion, unification, connection, adhesion, etc.

Everything is built on the fact that in our unification we find the inner properties of this unity, and this will be called the revelation of the Creator to man.

The most important thing is to feel the importance of the group and the need to unite. Without this, we cannot take a single step toward the Creator. This is done only from the center of the group, from our connection.

Otherwise, we will not be able to have those feelings, those properties, with which we must come to the Creator and be in contact with Him, the property of bestowal and love. This property fills everything, but we do not feel it because we are opposite to it.

How can we tune in to perceiving this quality of bestowal and love? All this is attained by annulling before the friends. Moreover, this is not a simple annulment but a creative one. After all, I must annul myself in order to move toward them, to unite with them, and to merge with them so that our unification manifests itself to us as the property of the Creator, the property of bestowal. This is called: “You created Me,” as the Creator says.

We move toward each other out of our egoism by making a restriction on it. And after we restrict it, we can start to expand it in the opposite direction, toward altruistic bestowal, but with the same force to an even greater extent.

Here we must understand how to work with our egoism with which we were originally created and how to invert it, that is, turn it to the property of connection and love and rise above ourselves. This happens by faith above reason when the property of Bina, the property of bestowal, becomes higher than the property of reception, sensation, and awareness, and the main thing for us is to be in bestowal.
[291991]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Annuling before the Friends” Lesson 2

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The smallest group is the ten. The large group is all of humanity.

All my pleas must go through the ten. Only through my small group can I turn to the Creator and not otherwise. The group is my switchboard, my unit through which I connect to Him.

To the extent that I want to establish connection with my friends, I turn to the Creator. And I cannot address the Creator directly at all, the Creator will not hear me. If at least two friends do not unite in bestowing to each other, then they cannot connect to the Creator. This is the minimum condition.

And the optimal condition is all of humanity. The rational condition is the ten. When I annul myself in front of others, I enter the connection with the Creator.
[292021]
From the International Convention ““Rising Above Ourselves”  1/7/22, “Annulling before the Friends” Lesson 2

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We all are different and each has his own qualities and feelings, but if we do the same action of annulling ourselves, then we become closer, similar to each other. The Creator shines upon us and starts creating completely new forms of connection between us.

Then we begin to understand that it is not by chance that we are so diverse in this group. We are gathered in a group by the upper light that separated, shattered, and broke us, and now it begins to connect us. We feel how He gathers us.

The closer He brings us to each other, the more we resist. We feel how different we are, but He gathers us. This is where we should be His helpers in faith above reason and begin together with Him, with the upper light, to connect into one common, harmonious system called the soul.
[292008]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Annulling before the Friends” Lesson 2

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We are engaged in an attack on the concealment of the Creator proceeding from the assumption, from what the Kabbalists who have already attained this tell us, that there is only one single force, it is concealment, and we must cancel the concealment by our efforts.

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us how we can reveal this upper force, what we must do to reveal it, and how to understand the stages of our revelation of the Creator. This happens by rising above ourselves, above our properties that separate us, to the property of the Creator who is one for all, one common field.

Therefore, we are gathered here to create this common field, this network of connections, between us, which exists, but is hidden from us by the egoism imposed on us. We must not just annul to, but rise above it and use it in the opposite direction. Then we will begin to feel its opposite, the true quality of this field, of this space in which we exist.

So, when I asked Rabash: “What should we say at a meeting of friends?”, he started his address with the phrase: “We have gathered here to establish a society for all who wish to follow the path and method of Baal HaSulam.”

Technically, there is no Creator. We follow the spirit of bestowal between us. When we reach the quality of bestowal, we begin to feel that this is the only quality that fills the entire world. We are created opposite of Him so that we become created beings, that is, we exist outside of this creation so we can  feel it from the outside, externally, and explore it.

To the extent of our similarity to this quality of bestowal and love, which we reveal through our efforts, we can be shaped from two opposite properties: from the properties of disconnection and unification, from the properties of hatred and love.

These two reciprocal properties will keep us independent from the Creator so that we do not dissolve and disappear in Him. On the contrary, we will be able to be like Him, connected, and literally merge with Him, and at the same time exist independently and separately, as created beings.

This is, in principle, the highest point of development of man when man is called Adam, from the word “Edomeh – similar to the Creator.”
[291972]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1

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We must try to understand the principle of our connection with the genuine universe, the revelation of the Creator, which consists precisely in getting closer to the property of bestowal, love, and connection, but at the same time not in disconnecting from the opposite properties of closeness, bestowal, connection, and love.

That is, the opposite properties will also be revealed in us, the properties of rejection all the way to hatred. But these seemingly mutually exclusive properties should be together. They allow us to exist as independent creatures. Otherwise, we would simply disappear and the Creator would exist.

We cannot imagine this because the Creator would not exist in the sense in which we can talk about Him because He is the property of the connection of opposites, the unification of the separated parts. And if there were no creation, there would be no Creator.

Therefore, as the creation develops, it becomes more and more egoistic, torn to pieces, distant, and divided in all its properties. This is only so that we further reveal the unity and reveal the property of the Creator.

That is why it is written: “You created Me.” You create Me, that is, it is from the opposite; from egoism, hatred, and rejection of each other we build this property of attraction and connection all the way to love, to complete mutual inclusion of everyone in everything.

Thus, we achieve precisely this property, which one might say did not exist before us and is called the Creator. This is the goal of our development.
[291968]
From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us,” Lesson 1

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