Audio Version Of The Blog – 4/28/22
Posted on April 28th, 2022
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there something Jews can do to lower antisemitism?“
We Jews need to first understand the reason for antisemitism: that it is due to us not performing our obligatory role in humanity.
If we would reach our completion, which is a state of absolute friendship according to the rule “Love your friend as yourself,” then we would bring balance and calm to nature’s colliding forces. This is our destiny, our responsibility and our role toward the world, which is also described in the Torah. Also, it has no connection to religious belief. It is all about the attitude of “Love your friend as yourself,” which requires no rituals or ceremonies. We simply have to achieve a heart-to-heart connection from person to person, and show that to everyone.
We need to realize the immense importance of our attitudes to each other. Human connection is nature’s highest degree, and our nation was founded on realizing the principle of human connection—“Love your friend as yourself”—and by doing so, become a conduit of such connection toward humanity, which is the meaning of us becoming “a light unto the nations.” Therefore, the more divided we are, the more antisemitism rises; and the closer we are to each other, then likewise the more the world would relate positively to us.
Based on the video “An Overview of the World’s Current State – David A. Rosenthal Interviews Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
In the News (The Telegraph, “In these Covid times, it’s Dostoevsky that is resonating with readers”): “Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote of ‘the pleasure of despair’, and book sales reveal British readers are buying into his brand of agreeable anguish.
“The Russian writer’s existentialist oeuvre is the fastest growing market for Penguin Classics, ahead of more genteel favourites like Austen and Dickens. …
“While the sudden clamour for the 19th-century author’s ‘gloom and nihilism’ remains ‘mysterious’ to publishers, experts have suggested that pessimistic modern readers have found a ‘prophet in Dostoevsky’.
“Kevin Birmingham, the author of literary biography The Sinner and The Saint, said: “I think the appeal is that Dostoevsky’s view of human nature seems more apparent now: we’re irrational, egoistic, and self-destructive.
“We spite ourselves, we crave freedom even if it leads to our detriment, and our perverse impulses are at the heart of civilisation.
“Readers of Dostoevsky’s novels wouldn’t be surprised by global affairs of the last several years. These are all Dostoevskian.
“He is currently fitting very well with the mood of readers, according to the Penguin Classics team, amid an increasing audience for angst that has seen UK sales for the author’s works increasing 177 per cent since 2016. …
“There is an abiding fear that there are no foundations, no ultimate sense of truth or justice, and this is something we’re grappling with these days.”
Question: What can we do about the fact that we live like this?
My Response: I think maybe this is why we will come to a brighter life, through such things like looking at the world through “dark glasses.”
Question: If I am wearing dark glasses, then what are my actions?
Answer: At least you have a realistic view of the world. It does not blind you.
Question: What does this reality give me?
Answer: You will want to brighten this world.
Question: Is it not that I will get depressed or something like that?
Answer: No, this is not depression. This is just a need for correction.
Question: Do you mean that because of such a view of Dostoevsky, I will want to come out into the light?
Answer: I think so, yes.
Question: Is this what you are talking about all the time: recognition of my evil, which is within me?
Answer: Precisely!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/10/22
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Comment: Today, the education of boys and girls is reduced to only sex education. They do not have any other, more internal interaction.
My Response: Adults also reduce everything to this and believe that it is just necessary to teach children about safe sex and nothing more.
Question: Is this an internal flaw of adults?
Answer: I do not think so. I see everything that is happening in the world as one more stage for forward movement.
We should not be negative about things that are happening. We just need to understand the tendency, and if possible, explain it based on an understanding of its final result.
Then we will understand why today we are experiencing such events and not some other ones, and how we can, nevertheless, prepare children to advance more correctly to the goal that nature moves us to.
I hope that all the suffering that we are going through as parents, and also children in their own way, will allow us to open our eyes.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Theater of the Absurd” 7/18/10
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Question: According to Kabbalah, a person is totally programmed. Does he have some kind of free program at the level of our world?
Answer: Not on the corporeal level. Why should he have it? In what way should I be free? Find me some point of application of freedom and tell me what it means to be free. Based on what I should act? What does “I am free to do as I want” mean? What do I want?
Comment: It is one thing today, something else tomorrow.
My response: No, this still is not freedom. Everything is decided somewhere in my subconscious, whether consciously or unconsciously, based on some instincts, habits, and the opinion of society.
Even if I accidentally choose something with my eyes closed, this is also not freedom since I choose by chance instead of deciding by myself.
In our behavior, in our world, there is no such concept as freedom at all. No! It cannot be! Give me the opportunity to apply a free decision, and I will not know what to base it on, for what, and where. No!
By freedom, we mean minimal pressure from unwanted extraneous sources. This is all. This is our entire freedom.
Thus, this is not freedom as a category. Freedom is when we are between two natures, between two universes, spiritual and ours, when I can act based on the practice of receiving for my own sake or bestowal and love for the others sake.
Between them, there is the opportunity for freedom, what is called Klipat Noga. There is such a special, very subtle, point-like state located between two universes. Only between them, is there a choice of where to go—there or here. However, once you have chosen, there is no freedom either here or there.
Question: But still, is it me who is choosing?
Answer: Yes! Everyone who is at this crossing chooses. Therefore, a person should stand with one foot here, the other foot there, and inside, within himself, feel the conflict between the two universes, the spiritual and ours, and choose.
He should be in this state all his life, at all stages of his development to the very final one. It is in this state that he feels free.
This state is not simple at all. It is not like feeling free in our world! Free from what? Do whatever you want. This is not freedom.
Here, however, is the freedom of choice, which implies that you have two equivalent theories, methods, practices, and you are in between them.
How will you choose if they are equivalent?! If one is more and the other is less, then there is no freedom of choice. If they are equal, then you, like Buridan’s ass, do not know where to turn, you stay in the middle and die of hunger because you are unable to choose between the two.
Everything is decided by the third one from above. You must come to contact with the upper force and with its help, without preferring one state to another, connect them together. Then, in the connection between them, you will feel freedom.
This is a very difficult decision. Not many people come to it; they are Kabbalists who are seriously working on themselves. But in the end, all of humanity must go through this and come to the feeling of complete freedom.
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From KabTV’s “Close- Up, Dissenting Opinion” 8/29/10
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It is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained; . . . the individual who has not staked his or her life may, no doubt, be recognized as a person; but he or she has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel).
Question: Is Hegel correct that if a person did not risk his life in war, for example, he does not have a normal self-consciousness; he is not advanced by evolution? Is it necessary to feel the risk of losing one’s life in order to come to self-knowledge?
Answer: The risk of the loss of life must be felt. But in the name of what? What do we mean by life, by understanding the loss of life? This all needs to be well grasped. Otherwise, these are beautiful empty words.
The animalistic fear of losing one’s life, in principle, does not give anything. All animals have it. And here, it means something that lifts us higher.
Question: What does it mean to a Kabbalist “to lose life”?
Answer: To lose life means to lose connection with the property of bestowal and love, with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 3/4/22
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Question: Peter asks: “How can we ask the Creator to be merciful? There is enough blood already, what does He want from us?”
Answer: He wants you to be like Him, that is, to first realize that He is the only one who commands everything and that everything depends only on Him, so that people turn only to Him, to the Creator.
And if you want to turn to Him, you must be together. Together! Together even with the most hated opponents, whatever they may be. If you cannot approach a stranger, some person you hate, and hug him and turn to the Creator, you must start from afar, but gradually, with the intention of approaching, embracing, and turning to the Creator. Without this, the Creator will not hear you.
The Creator stands behind your hater, the enemy, behind him. If you want to turn to the Creator, you must somehow pierce the heart of your enemy with your attitude.
Question: Does he have to pierce his heart first to get close to the enemy?
Answer: Of course.
Comment: But this is an unbearable condition.
My Response: If this is an unbearable condition, it means we will die. From century to century.
Question: Do you think this is the main condition?
Answer: Yes! It should become such that I am obliged to see my beloved people in everyone, moreover, parts of the Creator, His messengers and representatives. If I treat everything around me in this way, then I will suddenly see that the Creator is clothed in them. He is in them, fills them, and in general, it is all Him. Everything!
Question: An ordinary person hears you, and everything turns upside down inside him. He says: “It is not just impossible, it is completely crazy.” What should he do, a person like that?
Answer: Turn over!
Question: And here I should also ask the Creator: “Give me the opportunity to roll over”?
Answer: Of course! Who am I? Some small selfish part that is not capable of anything.
Question: That is, I am able to do that only if I turn to the Creator with my wish to roll over and approach my enemy, embrace him, and raise a prayer together with him?
Answer: I ask the Creator to allow me to do this, to show me, teach me, and push me, and that my opponent would also want the same and would agree with me.
Because I see both myself and the enemy as an action of the Creator. That the Creator guides us against each other like this, pushes us against each other, incites us. And so I ask the Creator to bring us closer, to open my enemy’s arms instead of his fists so that we gradually show our love for each other. Up to real love.
Comment: If the world would hear you…
My Response: If people want it; that is the problem. And the Creator, He is ready for it if people want it. Whether they want to or not depends on the suffering they feel.
Comment: The cup overflows, of course.
My Response: We have no idea how overflowing the egoistic cup is. How much grief you can pour into it! A sea can enter there, and you as if notice, something may have appeared at the bottom there.
Question: If so, what is the solution?
Answer: Continue! Yes, selfishness is infinite, just like altruism. And we must connect them correctly. We do not destroy one at the expense of the other; we only have to connect them correctly.
Question: Hatred with love, egoism with altruism?
Answer: Yes, just raise one above the other. Not hate over love, but love over hate. This is called “love will cover all crimes.” And without hatred and suffering, love will not be felt.
So, we must cherish and store hatred. Add a little more here and a little more there. This is the kind of hatred we lack here. Oh, it feels so good! Now I understand how much I can love because some other hatred has manifested itself.
Question: And I have the opportunity to love more?
Answer: Yes. It is a game.
Comment: But in fact, this is a life and death game.
My Response: Actually, nothing can be said about it until we start to implement it seriously. But when we finish, we will understand that it was right, and the Creator was right, that this is how He created the world. Justification is complete only at the end.
Then we will be absolutely righteous. Because we justify. Righteous comes from the word “justifying all the actions of the Creator.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/3/22
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Question: Why is our world built around money? The goal of life , in fact, is to achieve profit.
Answer: No, it was not always like that. In addition to wealth, there is also power, fame, and knowledge.
The world has existed not only for the sake of money. Money is just a tool. Nowadays it has its own value, but in the past people used to live according to the principle of “goods — money —goods.” The most important thing is a commodity of exchange, and money is a means of communication, an equivalent.
For example, if I need shoes and you need a suit, how can we exchange? How much do the shoes cost and how much does the suit cost? How do we know how to make such a barter?
Therefore, everything is tied to the monetary equivalent. Suppose I can get this suit for two pairs of shoes, maybe for two and a half, and maybe for five pairs. That is, the product is the main thing! You want my product, I want your product, and the money is in the middle. It plays the role of an equivalent when we build an equation. Your product is equal to a certain amount of my product. So, money was not the main thing, not always.
Or, suppose I am interested in becoming a governor, a leader. How much does it cost? So I pay for it. I know that a certain position is worth a certain amount of money. Money was a means to achieve a goal.
And now this principle has turned into “money — goods — money” when the main thing is money. You invest it in order to get a bigger profit. What for? To get an even bigger profit. That is, money itself has become power, a goal in itself, our master. This is what has been happening in the last 60 to 70 years. And this is completely wrong.
But this is the final form. Karl Marx wrote about this. There is nothing you can do about it, it is all dialectics.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Dollars, Gold or Diamonds?” 4/21/14
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is Israel against the Iran nuclear deal?“
The Iran nuclear deal will pour a lot of money into Tehran, strengthen its power and status, and Israel predicts that such an agreement will be very bad for itself, that it will bring Iran closer to having a nuclear bomb, and will enable Iran to continue spreading terrorism. Moreover, since the United States is currently considered Israel’s greatest ally, such a deal also shows that Israel will be left to deal with Iran on its own in case of an existential threat.
Indeed, Israel can rely on nobody. America is no friend of Israel, and in general, Israel has no friends. It shows that only Israel itself can establish its own protection.
In my opinion, I want no protection from anyone but myself. Our certainty about our future lies in the mutual support of both our spiritual and our corporeal degrees.
What is this support of both our corporeal and spiritual degrees?
On the corporeal degree, it means that we develop this weapon ourselves, and on the spiritual degree, it means that we become equipped with a spiritual weapon. A spiritual weapon is the force of human connection. If we activate such a force, then we can reach a state where the Iranian people, including their government and everyone else, will want to connect with us wholeheartedly and devotedly.
Based on the video “How Can Israel Protect Itself from a Nuclear Iran?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Chapter 2, Item 1
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Selected Highlights
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
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