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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “In France, Jews Should Expect Protection from No One”

A new case of an alleged antisemitic murder, downplayed as an accident, could affect the outcome of next Sunday’s presidential election in France. A possible victory by far-right candidate Marine LePen over incumbent President Manuel Macron, who is up for re-election, could benefit French Jewry and Israel, not by LePen’s love for the Jews, but out of interest. But in truth, regardless of who is in power, Jews have no one to rely on but themselves.

Jeremy Cohen, a 31-year-old Jewish man wearing a yarmulke, was attacked in February by a gang of young Muslim immigrants in Bobigny, a town in the northeastern suburbs of Paris. When he tried to escape from his assailants, he was killed by a tram.

The police initially reported the incident as a “pedestrian accidentally being run over,” but Cohen’s family obtained a video as evidence of what looks like an unprovoked attack prior to the accident. It prompted law enforcement to reopen the case under accusations of covering up the antisemitic incident for political reasons.

Cohen’s death occurred around the anniversary of the 2017 murder of French Jewish teacher Sarah Halimi, who was beaten to death and thrown from her balcony by a Muslim neighbor. He was not prosecuted because the court ruled he had acted in a cannabis-induced psychotic episode. The decision sparked protests in several countries.

The Jewish community can continue to seek justice for any crime it uncovers, but it is highly doubtful that it will succeed. The French government and many French people are more sympathetic to the Muslim community than to French Jews. This is nothing new. France is a country with deep antisemitic roots, and one should not be impressed by its exquisite culture. As we have seen in the past with Germany, the more developed and enlightened a nation is, the more antisemitic it becomes.

French nationalist leader Marine LePen and Jewish right-wing candidate Éric Zemmour have campaigned on the need to combat violence by Islamic fundamentalists. The message seems to resonate with French voters, which could favor the right.

It may seem an oxymoron, but the rise of the far right, usually associated with anti-Zionist rhetoric, could actually benefit French Jewry. A strong government could better stand up to all those who hate Israel and would more likely put them in their place. This would keep the country calm and serene, which is what every society strives for. The right sees an opportunity to distance itself from the leftist agenda and gain Jewish support both through votes and sponsorship. Throughout history, it has been the case that Jews have had the ability to negotiate with kings, governments and leaders in order to preserve themselves.

The Jews’ struggle for justice is no longer expressed through mass demonstrations as in previous antisemitic cases. They have realized that rallies and shouting slogans are not conducive to ensuring their safety.

In any case, the Jews in France and in all the countries of Europe are weakening. They are not joining together to form a strong body to look after their well-being in each country and throughout the European continent. Their economic and political calculations and arguments gnaw at them and prevent them from uniting. But without cohesion, the Jews have no future. This is an eternal condition.

The Jews should put into practice and enact the deeper meaning of the term that has prevailed for generations: “Jew” (from the Hebrew word “Yehudi”) – “Yechudi” means unique and united. A Jew is one who strives to connect all humanity and all reality with the primary force of nature, the Upper Force. Therefore, only a Jewish community that learns to stick together, to overcome all the differences that grow and separate its members, will feel prejudices and negative attitudes towards it change for the better.
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Question: Anyone in the world sitting at home can see on their TV or computer screen how the war is going on. Is it good from the point of view of spiritual development?

Answer: I think this is good because it helps a person to be a direct participant in all events and, as a result, to seek to make his influence on the course of events and their outcome.

In general, empathy helps in correction.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/1/22

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Question: What is happening in the world can be called the theater of the absurd. But humanity does not understand the idea of the chief producer. What is it according to Kabbalah?

Answer: The chief producer is, in fact, nature, which controls us.

By studying nature, especially cybernetics, bio-cybernetics, global systems, and the Earth’s geosphere, we see that everything is interconnected and is in some kind of development plan.

Moreover, this master plan is divided into sub-parts, which, in turn, are coordinated with each other. Nothing happens in vain, everything is predetermined.

Even if we do not know this plan, it still exists. Exactly the way before, we could not predict the weather in advance for a week or a month, but today we can. It is the same way with our study, practically we do not make any corrections to anything, we just reveal this program exists in the world.

Life is not a random set of events. We see this from all our research. Therefore, the question arises: “If so, then I, as the crown of nature, certainly have some purpose. Nature did not create me in vain. If there is great wisdom, causal development, and so on in every small particle, in every atom and molecule, then what is my causal development? What is this result that I have to come to”?

Such questions, on one hand, lead us to a dead end. On the other hand, we need to figure them out; otherwise, there is no point in living. This is our generation where people begin to feel that it is necessary to reveal this plan because without chasing something and without any perspective life simply empties and deprives a person of the desire to live.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Theater of the Absurd” 7/18/10

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According to the extent of the Panim of the degree, so is the extent of its Achoraim. The instilling of the Achoraim is a calling and an invitation to instill the Panim. This is why by the measure of the concealment of the Achoraim that they attained, they knew the measure of disclosure that they were about to attain (Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Zohar for All).

We are talking about the concealment that we have to make on our egoism in order to correct it. Revelation above concealment is how the spiritual Kli or spiritual vessel works. Only in this case will we be able to receive the revelation of the Creator into it.

Question: What is concealed from us?

Answer: Everything is concealed from us! Yet, we were given a very interesting state, which if we gradually attain it, we will reveal everything. However, we will reveal this state not in our receiving, but in the bestowing desires. Therefore, there is revelation in concealment. These two opposite forces, two opposite states, confuse people.

Question: Does a person, nevertheless, reveal the governance of the Creator?

Answer: Yes, but he does not reveal it in his egoistic desires, which are inherent in him, but in the altruistic ones that he creates above the egoistic desires. Therefore, the initial state is called concealment, and then it becomes revelation in concealment.

There is a big difference between these states because you do not reveal the Creator in egoism, but in the fact that thanks to your special work with the ego, you build a system above it in which you reveal the Creator, the quality of bestowal.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/15/22

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Question: Why is the entire system of our activities of daily living based on punishment? For example, the traffic rules are built in such a way that if a person crosses some line, he must be punished.

Answer: Our egoism does not understand anything in any other way. How else can it understand what is going on? If it is not punished, it will not know where its boundaries are and it will do what it can do to hurt itself even more.

Comment: But if we send people to prisons, they become even worse people there.

My Response: According to the Torah, there should be no prisons at all. There is no such punishment as a prison. Jews have never had them. All countries had different punishments, but the Jews did not. They only had compulsory re-education, not detention or deportation to remote places. That will not make things better. We can see it.

A person should not be isolated from society. If society can correct everything, then why isolate a person?! This is why we never had this. Only the nations who do not know the wisdom of Kabbalah and what is happening to humanity and to the world had this.

Question: How were people punished in Judaea before?

Answer: They were not punished! There were six cities of refuge in the country (Arei Miklat),where those who committed involuntary manslaughter could go to flee from revenge. In principle, no one was going to take revenge on them because people then lived according to spiritual laws.

In the cities of refuge everything was the same as in ordinary cities. There was what is called intense “brainwashing” meaning intense education conducted with them.

Question: Then, where did the prison as such come from?

Answer: For egoism, prison, in the literal sense of the word, is the easiest punishment that can be. We just get rid of a person. Basically, it is like death, but much sweeter.

Let’s say you would execute a criminal, but what is the use of it? Here, however, he is alone, gradually dying, realizing what you did to him. That is, society treats people with special cruelty.

Most importantly, prison is not correction. Therefore, there should not be such a condition. People come out of prison as even greater sinners and monsters than when they entered.

It is due to the fact that, on the one hand, they are released from prison according to their term of imprisonment, and not according to the willingness of a person to be in society. After all, what does the term of imprisonment matter? If a person has improved after a year, let him go back to freedom. If he has not improved in ten years, then do not release him in any case, he will only do harm. What does prison give? Well, he formally served his sentence. It is ugly, it is stupid, and it doesn’t make any sense.

Let’s say a judge passes a sentence, then what happens? If I was sentenced to jail, then the punishment should purify me, correct me in some way. If I came out after some time and did not correct myself, and did something again, then what do you want from me? Put the prosecutor and the judge in jail! They were the ones who gave me this kind of correction that did not work.

I am just a human being. It means that I was wrongly detained, sent away somewhere, and something was done to me. Wrongly! Therefore, those who ascribed this kind of punishment to me should be jailed. Punishment should be a correction! And there is none of it.

From the point of view of spiritual laws, our world is utterly small and completely irrational.

There should be no punishment, there should be correction. The punishment is that a person has committed a crime. This is his punishment. Now he must bring himself to a corrected level before himself, before society, before everything.

Question: Will the society of the future be a society without prisons?

Answer: Undoubtedly! Without any prisons. What is the point of keeping people in them if they do not correct a person?
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From the talk “I Got a Call. Crime and Punishment” 1/21/14

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How will we ever understand the true nature of reality?“

Our five senses disclose to us only a very limited part of the reality surrounding us. We call this part “our world” or “this world.” There are several other objects and actions in our surrounding reality that we do not feel, understand or recognize.

We exist in an immense reality that includes much more than what we currently sense, one where we connect with objects, actions, causes and consequences of literally everything in existence.

In order to understand where we fit in this picture, the purpose of our existence in this reality, and its true nature, we first need to discover it. After doing so, we can then see where we truly are in reality and how it functions. We could then draw conclusions about its true nature, including what is our nature, what is the nature of reality, what is our purpose and role, and how we can penetrate deeper and deeper into reality. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that was made for precisely this purpose.

Based on KabTV’s “Close up. Theater of the Absurd” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 18, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: If Kabbalah is a science, why does it operate with such a concept as the Creator? How is it compatible?

Answer: The Creator is a general force of nature. This is what Einstein wanted to reveal as a physicist. Many scientists understand that there is one single force in nature that manifests itself relative to us as many different physical, chemical, and cosmic phenomena and forces, including those that we do not yet know about.

In principle, behind all these particular phenomena and laws that we reveal in relation to our senses, there is one single force, one single source. Gradually, as we study nature, we come to this conclusion.

This one force in Kabbalah is called the Creator because it created us. We are a creation of nature. The Gematria of the word “Teva – nature” is identical to the word “Elokim – the name of the Creator.” This indicates that the Creator or nature is one and the same.

The theory of a single field that Einstein was looking for is absolutely clearly presented in Kabbalah to anyone who wants to understand it, and based on this, determines their movements in this field, just as an electric charge moves in an electromagnetic field to its source in order to enter into harmony with itself.

Let’s say an electric charge has mass and there is some kind of gravitational field in which it finds a state of equilibrium. The mass and the gravitational field pull it, like egoism, down to our world, and the electric potential in it and the source of the electromagnetic field are from above, and depending on the difference of these forces, it resides, as they say, between heaven and earth.

So, we too, must develop ourselves so that our spiritual potential pulls us up higher and higher from the ground. Therefore, the whole methodology of our ascent, our development, can be described in clear physical formulas.

Kabbalah operates with absolutely real terms: thickness, attraction, screen, rigidity of the screen, force of reflection, light coming from a certain angle, interference, etc.

Along with this, certain sensations arise in a person, because by using these phenomena, he applies them in himself, in his own forces. And then, through his forces, he feels everything that surrounds him, which is called the upper world.

Question: How is it possible that through these seemingly dry terms, a person all of a sudden comes to sensations?

Answer: It is possible! For example, when you look at the notes, it seems to you that some squiggles are drawn on the paper. And the musician looks at it, cries, laughs, and sings. For him, this is a record of information.

The Kabbalist sees this language! For him, this language is alive! Feelings and forces begin to play in it.
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From KabTV’s “Close up. Beyond the Last Line” 5/3/10

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Before the collapse of the Second Temple, the Jewish people lived according to the formula “love your neighbor as yourself.” Therefore, they never had the suppression of one by the other like the Romans.

A person was considered great in his spiritual inclinations, in his mercy to others, in mutual help and love. The scientist who knew why it is necessary to live according to the principle of “love your neighbor” interpreted this from within himself. But at the same time, he could do the simplest work.

For example, the great sage Rabbi Yohanan was a shoemaker, someone else was a tailor, and so on. They considered it their duty to participate in simple labor.

After all, the task of a person in this world is to live by his own work, and along with this, to ascend to the very heights of creation with his inner spiritual work. But with the Romans, everything was done totally differently: divide and conquer, suppress with your pride, with your strength.
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From KabTV’s “Close up. Formula of the Creator” 7/18/10

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)” 

Selected Highlights

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