Question: What advances my friends in the ten in the best way: my internal work on annulment or my concrete actions in the ten as a result of it?

Answer: Annulment in the ten is a concrete action.

Question: How does one leave all imaginary pursuits and work together? How can we combine this?

Answer: Consult with the rest of the friends and you will see how you can solve this. There is no need to turn to me anymore for solving problems. I gave you the keys to their solution.

Question: The connection between us in the ten as “one man with one heart” is the quality of the Creator (“one”). Does the stage of adhesion allow us to reach the connection with the Creator according to the common quality of one?

Answer: Yes, exactly like that.

Question: When I feel the greatness of the Creator, then I turn to the Creator with the needs of my friends. Is it the adhesion to the group or is it adhesion to the Creator? Do I do some additional action toward the group in order to adhere to it?

Answer: No. If you adhere to the group, feel what it wants, and turn with this desire to the Creator, then this is already a complete action.

Question: How does one work with anger correctly?

Answer: I think that the problem with anger is a problem with the center most part of egoism that we cannot contain and that controls us. Therefore, try to work on it anyway. Anger is a manifestation of extreme egoism.

Question: If I discover that my friends neglect the external framework recommended for us to observe, for example, they go for a walk during the lesson, how should we work with this?

Answer: There is no need to work with this. What can you do? It is a pity that they do not participate together with the group in the common work. Of course this is not good. Of course this weakens the group and pushes them away from the group. They are drifting away with the current and who knows when they will come to us again. But they do not feel it yet.

Question: If all the work of revealing the Creator takes place only in the ten, in the group, then why did the Creator create the entire external world? How should we treat it?

Answer: We must connect this external world to us. And we will do it. First, we will pull ourselves up, and then we will pull it up to us.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Adhering to the Friends” Lesson 3

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Question: We are very close in our ten, but sometimes there are disagreements and friction between us. What should we do to grow closer?

Answer: You should have even more friction. Otherwise, what will you rise above? In spite of what will you get closer?

We cannot just get closer, we have to see the obstacles and rise specifically above them. It’s just like lovers: if they don’t argue, then they have nothing with which to renew their relationship. This is how we are made.

Therefore, our life always consists of black-white, black-white. And if we correctly build our relationship on the contrast of these two elements and rise above them for the sake of a third element, a more important factor, then our relationships continue and flourish.
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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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Question: You tell us that when we bestow to the society, the efforts come back to us. How does that work?

Answer: We have no means to influence our development other than  taking part in the development of a ten, our common Kli. A person cannot pull himself out of the swamp.

Therefore, we need to realize the state we are in, clearly understand and feel it. Then you will see the law of Arvut (mutual guarantee) as a vital condition for transitioning to a better state.

Question: When I bestow to my ten without mutual guarantee, it seems that nothing is coming back to me. Is this the case?

Answer: Of course not. But we must try to ensure mutual guarantee. Then the effect is much greater and more potent, and the progress is faster. But even if you bestow to the ten without feeling mutual bestowal from it, there is still advancement, both yours and theirs.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Working in Mutual Responsibility” Lesson 6

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee],” Item 17: On the negative side, if a part of the nation does not want to keep the Arvut, but to wallow in self-love, they cause the rest of the nation to remain immersed in their filth and lowliness without finding a way out of their filth.

Mutual guarantee assumes that everyone in the ten more or less understands the necessity to observe this mutual guarantee and move toward common connection. Only in it will they find the property of Bina—the property of revealing the Creator, the upper world.

If a part of the nation does not want to keep the Arvut, this means that they do not understand its importance.

There are people who do not realize that this is important. They need time. I know for myself how difficult it is. I also did not immediately begin to understand the need for spiritual guarantee because before that I had studied all sorts of theories and all that repelled me from studying this topic.

Every day, even every moment, we must again raise ourselves in faith above reason to the property of bestowal, exit ourselves, raise above ourselves (Malchut), and thus secure this guarantee from our friends.

Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that if a part of the nation does not want to keep the mutual guarantee, they force the rest of the nation to sink into egoism and remain in it.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Working in Mutual Responsibility” Lesson 6

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 59

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 155

Lesson on the Topic: “Everything Is Obtained by the Power of Prayer”

Selected Highlights 

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Question: If the greatness of the Creator depends on the greatness of the friends in my eyes, isn’t it better to speak about the greatness of the ten and not about the greatness of the Creator?

Answer: In principle it is the same thing. The greatness of the Creator cannot be more than the greatness of the ten.

Therefore, if you want to know exactly how great the Creator is in your eyes, you can measure it by your attitude to the friends, how great they are in your eyes. This is how it works.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Normalization with Gulf States Will Not Bring Normalization with the World”

Recently, Ahmed Al-Jarallah, Editor-in-Chief of the Arab Times, wrote an op-ed that urged Gulf states to normalize relations with Israel, and criticized the Palestinians. Al-Jarallah stated that Gulf states should not support the Palestinians financially or mediate between them and Israel “whenever one of them throws a missile at Israel.” If they attack Israel, he suggested, “let them rebuild what they destroy by their own acts.” In conclusion, Al-Jarallah stated, “All the Gulf states should normalize relations with Israel due to the fact that peace with this most advanced country is the right thing to do.” As for the Palestinians, he vented, “Let the foolish fend for themselves.”

Naturally, the Israeli media quoted the op-ed extensively. Finally, someone in the Arab world has listened to reason, looked at the facts, and realized that the Palestinians are the aggressors and Israel is acting only in self-defense. I, too, was happy to hear about Al-Jarallah’s words, but I think that if Israel did what it is supposed to do, it would have no enemies at all, not even the Palestinians. After all, we are the people who conceived the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and we are the ones expected to realize it.

An alliance with Israel may be great for the Gulf states, and I am certainly happy when any Arab country wants to make peace with us rather than fight against us. However, for Israel, this is far from enough. No peace that we will make will hold until we make peace with one another. Look, for example, at the peace we have with Egypt and with Jordan. There may be absence of active fighting between us, but there is a lot of hostility toward Israel, especially among the citizens of the two nations. Therefore, in the event of a war, Israel cannot trust these countries not to join its enemies.

We may not realize it, but Israel, the startup nation, was initially a startup society. Our “experiment” was unprecedented, and has never been attempted since. The idea was that people who came from foreign, often hostile nations, could form a nation by extolling the idea of unity itself. If successful, the “formula” would be a role model for humanity.

For centuries, we teetered between success and failure, but in the end, we failed the world: We fell into such diabolic hatred of each other that the world has never since tried to establish a nation based on mutual responsibility and loving others as yourself.

Nevertheless, the world did not forget our obligation. Not only our own scriptures remind us of our mission, but antisemites and historians also recognize it.

Among those antisemites is the most notorious Jew-hater in US history: Henry Ford, founder of the automobile company. In his antisemitic composition, The International Jew – the World’s Foremost Problem, Ford details his grievances against the Jews. Yet, here and there, he throws some very thought-provoking statements: “It may be that when Israel is brought to see that her mission in the world is not to be achieved by means of the Golden Calf,” he writes, “her very cosmopolitanism with regard to the world and her inescapable nationalistic integrity with regard to herself will together prove a great and serviceable factor in bringing about human unity.” Ford also complained that “the total Jewish tendency at the present time is doing much to prevent” Jewish unity.

Regarding being a startup society, Ford advises contemporary sociologists to study the ancient Israeli society. In his words, “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems on paper, would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.”

Similar to Ford, acclaimed historian Paul Johnson wrote in his comprehensive composition A History of the Jews, “At a very early stage in their collective existence [Jews] believed they had detected a divine scheme for the human race, of which their own society was to be a pilot.”

To this day, the world regards us as indebted. It cannot forge the kind of unity that it needs today—among nations and faiths—and it does not see the example it needs to receive from us. This is why the Palestinians can feel confident that the world will side with them. It blames us for every conflict on the planet, not only with the Palestinians, but also among themselves. And until we make peace with one another and become the pilot society, the social model that the world expects to see, we will remain the world’s pariahs.
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My new article on Linkedin “Twenty-Two Billion Worthless Dollars without Love”

One of the most curious individuals in the cryptocurrency financial industry is Sam Bankman-Fried. In just a few years, he has turned from an anonymous son of two college professors into the richest person under thirty (he is twenty-nine), with a net worth of US$22.5 billion. According to the Forbes 400 list, he is ranked 32nd on the list of the world’s wealthiest people for 2021. But what is even more extraordinary is that Bankman-Fried plans to give it away. He believes in utilitarianism and plans to donate the great majority of his wealth to charity.

Regrettably, as noble as his goals may be, more money will not solve or even improve anything. The world has more than enough of everything, except for the one thing that would let everyone benefit from the abundance: love. Of this, there is none.

Twenty-two billion dollars might help foster love among people, but to do that, we first need to know what love is. Our current understanding of it is that we love what makes us feel good. If another person makes me feel good, I will love that person. If giving makes me feel good, I will love giving. But these do not make me a loving person.

When my younger daughter was a child, we sat down for dinner one evening and had fish. We started talking about love and I tried to explain to her what love means. I pointed to the fish on her plate and asked, “Do you like fish?” She replied enthusiastically, “I love fish!” I said, “Then kiss the fish.” The grimace on her face said it all. She realized that it was not the fish that she loved, but the taste of their flesh in her mouth.

To love is to want to give to another what the other person wants, to think and dream and plan your moves so they please your loved one. Love means cloaking yourself in the other person’s perspective and using that understanding to see how you can please that other person.

Money cannot teach that. Only people who know what it’s like to be that way can help you achieve it. Just as you would not take as a guide on a treacherous trail a person who has never walked it, if we want to achieve true, selfless love, we should follow those who have achieved it.

Of course, anyone can claim that he or she has achieved it, and there is no way to know who is honest and who is not. Therefore, the only advice I can offer is to follow your heart, and constantly examine if your teacher is teaching you to love selflessly or to love the teacher, or other sorts of unclean love.

If we manage to cultivate selfless love among us, we will not need billions of dollars, or even millions. All we will need is ourselves, and of this, there is abundance.
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My new article on Linkedin “Plenty More Waves in the Covid Sea”

There is an oft-said consolation after a breakup: “There are plenty more fish in the sea.” As we are bidding farewell and saying “Good riddance!” to the Omicron wave, we must remember that there are plenty more waves in the Covid Sea. Although Omicron was a mild wave compared to its predecessors, there is no guarantee that its successors will be as forgiving, or even of a similar kind. One thing is clear, we are attracting troubles to ourselves. The holes we rip in the fabric of the smooth reality will draw every passing calamity upon us until we are convinced that we must mend the tears and straighten out the dents.

Covid, as with the rest of the crises affecting us, is not a freak accident. It is a direct result of our mistreatment of everything around us. All the crises, including Covid, aim to slow us down and restrain our vandalism toward nature and toward weaker people and nations.

From the very beginning, I was grateful for the coronavirus precisely because it forced us to slow down. I have no doubt that without it we would have been much worse off today than we are now. The Omicron wave was the mildest yet, but we still have not learned the lesson; we are still waiting for the moment when we can return to our reckless way of life. If we do not learn to be considerate, nature will impose its shackles on us through pain.

At the same time, if we do learn to be considerate and see that everyone gets their basic needs fulfilled, and we can do that without adding a single cent to our collective spending, we will see an immediate relief from all the crises plaguing us today. We should take the opportunity that nature has given us, the break from the pandemic, and tend to the urgent needs of humanity. We should secure food provision for all, housing, schooling, and health. If we do that and establish a balanced way of life around the world, we will stop suffering from plagues, wars, and other crises.

To achieve balance, we must build trust and understand that we are all dependent on each other. If we realize that all of humanity is on a precipice, and if one of us falls, we all fall, then we will let no one fall.

Just as new strains quickly spread throughout the world, rendering vaccines useless, any problem that anyone has will immediately affect the entire world. If we come to feel this and live with this mindset, we are certain to avoid troubles and the waves of the sea will not crash on our heads.

Mending the tears means mending the rifts between us. If, instead of tearing each other up, we will help each other mend our lives, the fabric of reality will be smooth and straight, and our lives-peaceful at last.
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