Our methodology is very practical and concrete. I need to attune to the Creator. There is none else besides Him, and I must be aimed at Him. To do this, I have a device, the group.

If I attune to the group in such a way that my egoism gradually decreases and I see everything not through my egoism, but through the properties of bestowal, connection, and love, then I will be able to reach the state of revelation of the Creator. That is what we are doing. There is nothing else here.

In reality, the group is in an ideal state, it is absolutely harmonious with the Creator, in complete adhesion with Him. But in my view, it is a total zero if not a minus.

So, I must elevate this group higher and higher in my eyes each time, each friend and all of them together. And then I raise myself, my vision, my view, and my opinion to such a level that I begin to see the Creator through the eyes of the group.

Therefore, it is said: “From love for the created beings to the love for the Creator.” There is no other method. This is what we have in front of us in our world: man, society, humanity, and the Creator.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Adhering to the Friends” Lesson 3

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”: On the positive side, if they keep the Arvut to the point that each one cares and satisfies the needs of his friends, they can fully observe the Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], meaning to bring contentment to their Maker, as mentioned in “Matan Torah.” 

The Creator is what stands behind my friends. As I treat the friends, so I treat the Creator. It cannot be otherwise!

If I care for my friends so that they realize what faith above reason means and all the time imagine that we are in the property of bestowal, that we are attracted and are not repulsed by each other, that we must help each other, and I do help; if I realize faith above reason in this way; that is, I raise the quality of Bina (faith) above reason, above the quality of Malchut (reception), then by affecting my friends, I affect myself back through them.

That is why it is so important to constantly take care of your friends. In principle, this is self-care in a hidden form because I am an egoist and would not wish for myself to become an altruist. I cannot love and bestow to others! And society cannot influence me either. It may prepare me for this state, but nothing more.

And if I influence the society by propagating the values of bestowal, love, and unity, then my own efforts affect me, and I correct myself through the environment. That is how it works.

Although it seems to me that I care about something else, it really means that I care about my own correction. I must show everyone my aspiration toward faith above reason as if I really desire it very much. By this I inspire my friends, although I do not possess this property, do not yet consider it necessary and mandatory, and do not know it at all, and I am just beginning to study what faith above reason, bestowal above reception, and love above egoism means.

Moreover, my influence on others passes through the common Kli (vessel) through all the souls and it returns to me. I receive it from everyone. It cannot be said that it is in quantity, because it acts selectively, but in terms of quality, it practically comes from the Creator.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Working in Mutual Responsibility” Lesson 6

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Question: If we build the Creator between us by correcting the quality of our relationships, will the corrected humanity become the Creator itself or will there always be two forms: humanity and the Creator?

Answer: Regarding what will always be, I cannot tell you. There are steps beyond final correction and even higher. But I think that there is no limit to our ascent in connection, adhesion, and similarity to the Creator.

However, we do not disappear, i.e., our initial egoistic point will never be lost. We must still remain created beings and not disappear in the Creator. This is what He desires.

However, I can correct this point and be similar to Him. Therefore, we become like the Creator even though there is a black point that He created inside of us. But it does not apply to us. He created it so I do not see any flaws in it.

It is thanks to this point that we can be in complete adhesion with each other; otherwise, we cannot. Adhesion implies that there is still some difference between one and the other and at the same time there is connection. This connection of opposites is wonderful. In principle, this is what gives such a range of feelings in our world—diversity and rapprochement at the same time.

Imagine, especially the female part of our global group, when can you experience the feeling of love? When you feel that there is someone against you and wants to connect with you. Then love appears.

And if such a difference in the black point, the only one that the Creator made, disappears, then the whole creation will disappear altogether.
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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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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are American Jews and Israeli Jews enemies?“

Today, most American Jews wish to disassociate themselves with the State of Israel. If tomorrow, the State of Israel would cease to exist, most American Jews would regret it for no more than a few minutes, if that. They wish to associate themselves more with America than with the State of Israel or the nation of Israel.

By doing so, they feel more aligned with American society; and on the contrary, by thinking, helping and caring about Israel, they draw hostility onto themselves from American society.

Only through uniting above divisions do we have the ability to give the people of Israel strength, i.e. connection between us and with the great force of nature that ties and holds us together, thanks to which we exist.

Back in the days of Abraham, some 3,800 years ago, the nation of Israel at its foundation was a gathering of 70 nations of the world. Abraham led them out of Babylon and brought them to the Land of Canaan. Since then, we have the name “Israel,” from the words “Yashar Kel” (“straight to God”), i.e. those who aim themselves straight at the upper force of love, bestowal and connection.

By uniting toward a common goal, united “as one man with one heart,” above the divisive egoistic drives, Israel becomes seen as a friend—from the love of Israel and the love of your fellow man, we come to collective love. This will protect us because we then connect to the single acting force in nature.

Based on the video “Why Do American Jews Separate Their Identity from Israel?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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How can we recover from the coronavirus and generally cure our whole life? We wonder where we get this virus from. Yes, the time just comes, a state is reached, such relationships between people that all these microbes come out.

These viruses do not act against us. All of them come from one higher power with the aim of straightening us, connecting us with each other, involving us in a common action. It seems to us that the virus separates us, but in fact, there is nothing to separate because we have never been connected. And now, when everyone is suffering, this collective suffering somehow brings us closer to each other.

Therefore, it is possible to cope with the virus only on one condition: that we fix the relationship between us. Otherwise, the disease will flare up anywhere, just out of thin air at the North Pole or on an isolated ship where not a single sick person seems to have boarded. It does not depend on where people are, but only on their relationship to each other.

The more selfish our relationship is, the worse the viruses will be. Therefore, let’s fix them now, do not wait for the next viruses. The “epoch of viruses” has come; more cunning blows from nature, which, in accordance with our development, strike more sophisticatedly and accurately. Humanity, with our machinery and technology are developing, and viruses and diseases are developing along with us.

In the old days people were simpler, and therefore did not suffer from modern diseases like migraines and depression. And in our time, even animals have begun to suffer from human ailments. We are moving forward in development. Therefore, we must correct ourselves, otherwise new, even more terrible viruses will be revealed. And we will have to invent new drugs all the time, but I do not think that we will be able to win this race. After all, viruses will become more and more cunning and specialized.

A person develops, but at the same time he cannot grow wiser and begin to correct himself. After all, the egoism of a person grows all the time and covers his eyes. He cannot admit that he himself is to blame for everything and that he is looking for a way to get rid of the blow instead of correcting it in the bud.

Nature tells us that we need to correct ourselves. Instead of the government, instead of the state education program, a tiny virus comes that you can’t even see and it educates us all in a wonderful way. We have not bowed to people, to society, but we have bowed to a microscopic virus and are ready to obey it. The virus decides how we live and work.

Let’s hope that gradually we will gain reason and feelings in order to understand who we are and in what baseness we live that is unworthy of people. Maybe it will lead us to repentance.
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From KabTV’s “A Conversation with Journalists” 1/6/22

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic: “Faith Above Reason” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 120

Selected Highlights 

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Question: How can a person annul himself if he feels he is righteous and prideful toward his friends?

Answer: Let him pray and ask, and annul himself in front of his friends through any action. Thus, he will have the opportunity to annul himself before the Creator.

In this world he has the possibility to do everything with the group to annul himself. And he has the opportunity to pray, to ask the Creator to help him annul.

Question: When I see someone greater than myself, then I can annul myself. So should I pray to see friends as great?

Answer: You must see them as great. Try to see something special in each of them.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/7/22, “Annulling before the Friends” Lesson 2

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My new article on Linkedin “The Dilemma of Non-Jews Playing Jewish Characters”

It is highly doubtful that Golda Meir could have imagined that forty years after her death Jews would create a storm in Hollywood regarding the actress who would play her character in the upcoming biopic “Golda.”

Filling Golda’s shoes in the production is the non-Jewish British actress Helen Mirren. This casting sparked a protest by Jewish actors in the United States and the UK against non-Jews playing Jewish characters in movies and series. Just as African or Asian actors insist on portraying African or Asian roles on screen, Jewish actors assert that only a Jewish actor is capable of embodying Jewish characters and representing their people.

I strongly and unequivocally agree with this opinion. Not only because Golda Meir is a Jewish Zionist figure, the Prime Minister who led Israel in the tense days of the Yom Kippur War, but because the Jewish spirit cannot be conveyed at all by non-Jews. Even if it were Albert Einstein, who lived far from Zionist ideals in America and was totally immersed in the world of science, a non-Jewish actor could not express the same spirit.

In the world of cinema there are many examples of non-Jews who have played the roles of Jews, but much more than the complex facial expressions, body language, and distinctive speech, it is the inner spirit that is indescribable.

If we were to conduct a comparative test, I think both Jews and non-Jews would agree that it is impossible to play a Jew if you are not a Jew. Why is that? It is because of the collective experiences endured by this people throughout the ages that pulses in the fiber of their being. Jews are a people who took the role on humanity’s stage at the foot of Mount Sinai to be a “light unto the nations,” a symbol and model of social unity. This is a spiritual message and mission that has not disappeared; it is engraved within them and is passed on from generation to generation. Whether we like it or not, the Jewish spirit is present and alive in every Jew, regardless of the country in which Jews live.

I have seen Jews from China to South America, from Europe to the Far East, and although the different local culture has influenced their lifestyle, they still remain Jews. They have an essential inner quality that does not allow them to escape their Jewishness, so much so that they can be perceived as Jews. This living heritage cannot be replicated or simulated with authenticity by someone who lacks the innate quality. Therefore, a non-Jewish actor or actress cannot play a Jew.

In short, non-Jewish actors can be great and win praise by playing Jews on stage, but in practice, the deep and substantial spiritual root instilled in the Jewish psyche, which is connected to the root of creation, will not touch the heart of the viewer.
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We ask the Creator to give us the strength so we can perform all our actions for You, meaning for the sake of the Creator. Otherwise, meaning if You do not help us, all our actions will be only for our own benefit. (Rabash, “What Is, ‘The Good Deeds of the Righteous Are the Generations,’ in the Work?”)

Our attitude to the future, regardless of whether it will be for our sake or for the Creator’s sake, depends only on the Creator’s help.

If He does not help us, we will automatically do everything within our egoistic nature and live within the limits of our world and will think only about ourselves without even realizing that it is possible to go beyond these thoughts. This is the lowest, the worst possible state of all in nature.

And vice versa, if the Creator shines His light on us, helps us to connect, and begins to fill the space between us, the emptiness, rejection, and distance, then we will begin to feel each other exactly in the way in which His presence between us will do it.

Our initial state can be compared to slices of bread or vegetables in soup. The soup is like the light of the Creator, which should fill all the distances between us, and we will be in it. This is called “creating Shechina,” the presence of the Creator that would fill everything between us.

In accordance with this, our attitude toward each other is changing. While we remain egoists inside ourselves, opposite to each other, we treat each other in accordance with the effect of the light, the Creator, on us.

By making a restriction on our egoism and finding a screen to turn the ego into bestowal, love, and connection, we thus get a multiple,  625 times the connection with each other. It turns out that all our actions are no longer for our own sake, but for the sake of our connection with everyone, between us and the Creator.

But if we cannot ask the Creator to help us with His force, to correct everyone’s intention from receiving to bestowal, from distance to connection, then nothing will help us. We ourselves will not be able to make a single correct move toward each other. In no way! Only if the Creator helps us.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Asking the Creator to Fill the Place Between Us” Lesson 7

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