Audio Version Of The Blog – 5/3/22
Posted on May 3rd, 2022
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My new article on Linkedin “A Weekend of Worldwide Unity”
This past weekend, my students from around the world convened online for a weekend of profound unity and love. Transcending distance, culture, faith, ethnicity, and gender, they gathered in sessions and workshops, meals and celebrations, and rejoiced in their shared desire to bond. More than 6,000 students convened on the platform they have built themselves, and which they named Arvut (mutual responsibility). They spoke in dozens of languages, all with simultaneous interpretation, and talked of nothing but love and responsibility for one another.
Unity will determine the fate of the world. If we establish it, we will reverse the trajectory of enmity, aggression, and violence. If we shun it, the world will plunge into another war.
This weekend, we discovered once again that when there is a will to unite, there is always a way. The differences did not divide us. On the contrary, they brought us that much closer.
As a teacher, my greatest joy is to see my students accomplish themselves. This weekend, I was given a demonstration that my students have accomplished a great deal.
Indeed, this convention was the most powerful, intense, and serious of all the conventions thus far. My students proved that they are willing to fight for the unity of the world, to rise above their own ego, unite, and share that unity with the entire world.
There is nothing that the world needs more than unity. Accordingly, there is no greater gift that we can give to our fellow human beings than our unity and the invitation to join in.
Unity will determine the fate of the world. If we establish it, we will reverse the trajectory of enmity, aggression, and violence. If we shun it, the world will plunge into another war.
Great transformations lie ahead, whose nature depends on the degree of our unity. I hope and pray that humanity will join the unity we have achieved this past weekend, and raise itself from the nadir of abhorrence to the zenith of love of others.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Wheat Storage with Jordan Will Not Yield Good Crops”
According to World Israel News, as well as other papers, an AP report writes that Jordan’s king, Abdullah II, proposed that Jordan and Israel will set up a joint wheat reserves and a food storage center. The purpose of the center is to offset “the negative repercussions of the Russian war in Ukraine,” since the two countries “account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which countries in the Middle East rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidized bread and bargain noodles.” Regrettably, I have never seen a connection with Jordan, under this king or the former, that yielded anything good for Israel. I have no faith in his “good intentions.”
Until today, and I have no reason to believe that it will change going forward, anything that we have given King Abdullah has been used against us. As it happened with the water and electricity agreement, so it will happen with the wheat, and with everything else we will include in that “joint” storage.
Despite the warm welcome that Israeli president Herzog received in Jordan, the voices coming from there now are the complete opposite. They will turn against us in an instant.
I can understand Abdullah’s interest. Such an agreement will give him power among the Arab states, but I do not think it is our job to give him that. The better we relate to him, the more we strengthen his negative attitude toward us.
If we lived in a corrected international relationship, it would look very different. There would not be exploitation but real partnership. We would still establish joint ventures in agriculture, water, and energy, but we would do so with a very different aim in mind: not to exploit but to strengthen the bonds between us. If that were the motive, I would be all for it.
As it is, when we give and give and give, and see only hostility in return, I see nothing good in this relationship. Jordan wants to get the most from us, give nothing back, and gain respect among our enemies. I do not see why we should go along with it.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What causes mental illness?“
Egoistic human nature—the incomplete and broken self-centered desire—is the cause of all problems, including mental illness.
It functions with a significant fault by trying to satiate itself at the expense of others. By doing so, it devours both itself and others. This faulty functioning of our desire is behind our every illness—mental included.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, as egoists, we are opposite to nature’s altruistic form, and this opposition between us and nature gives us to every illness, problem and pain.
If we could perceive nature in its wholeness, then we would perceive nature functioning by laws of love, bestowal and connection. Therefore, the more we are opposed to nature’s laws, the more we enter into dissonance with them, then the more we experience nature’s completely positive force, which we dwell within, in an increasingly negative way. As such, the more we egoistic we become in our development, the more illnesses and suffering we experience.
Curing mental illness, as well as every other problem and pain, at its root would thus involve correcting our egoistic human nature: positively connecting with supportive, encouraging and loving attitudes to each other above our egoistic drives, and by doing so, aligning ourselves with nature. We would then experience nature’s completely positive force in a positive way, elevating ourselves to a newfound harmony, peace and balance with each other and the world.
Based on “Close-Up, Is Frankl right?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 8, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Varun Gaba on Unsplash.
Comment: Vladimir writes, “Dear Michael Laitman! I wanted to share my thoughts with you. My friend’s son is fighting in the current war. Recently I tried to do an exercise to imagine myself in the place of that friend. And I could not stand this exercise. Five minutes later, I found myself in a state of shock. After all, we exist in the same space with smartphones, this is a miracle of the 21st century, without which it is impossible to imagine modern life. And this item is on the table. Any call makes my heart skip a beat! My hand becomes like lead and the horror strikes with the fact that on a familiar number you might suddenly hear someone else’s voice, ‘Your son…’ And so on, second by second, day by day, I could not imagine it.”
Tell me, please, what kind of world do we live in? Before you really could somehow exist in these pauses, even terrible, terrible ones, until, God forbid, something happens; time went by, you lived. And now, the distance from the shot to the sensation has shortened so much.
My Response: I understand that.
Question: What is it? Tell me, why is this given to us today?
Answer: So that we can experience all this and determine how we really live, how we create our reality.
Comment: Our reality is like this.
My Response: So let us place all the people who command our reality in this reality.
Question: Those who are twisting all this, let them have such a feeling?
Answer: Yes, so that they sit in the room and wait for the phone call. And so that they have no opportunity to change anything! Leave them that way for a week. And then see what happens to them.
One should feel that these are his own children. It does not matter that his real kids are in London.
Question: Will the prayer of parents arise from this state?
Answer: Yes, it is natural. Even if they do not understand, the heart itself will react like this: “Please do not let anything happen to them!”
Question: And where is the Creator’s answer to all this? Let everything be over, that is enough! How long can we be imposed on?
Answer: The Creator will bring them to a state so that they actually turn to Him, and so that they do everything in this world that depends on them so that there is no war.
Question: You say “they,” do you mean practically all people?
Answer: All people, mainly parents, on whom this decision depends.
Question: So until this prayer is raised with sufficient force, it will continue, and we will be brought to prayer all the time?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/21/22
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Question: Alexey writes: “It seems like we used to live in perfect harmony, and suddenly everything was over. We live separately, we try not to run into each other in the hallway or kitchen. We already understand that all conversations boil down to war. We met in Kyiv and got married in Omsk. We have constant accusations and war in our house. I don’t know what to do.”
How can we set up this household unit?
Answer: They must live for the future, not separating from each other, but creating something together in common—a family. There is no escape from this.
Question: And when eyes are covered with resentment and hatred, how can we come to the fact that we have a future?
Answer: Even in the case when a person who is in front of you is against you, you need to help each other to become friends, to be loving.
Question: They say that they lived in perfect harmony. How can they return to it, soul to soul? What does your constant offer mean to them: “Love will cover all transgressions”?
Answer: It means that they can raise themselves to the next level of existence. Because by overcoming hostility, even hatred, they strive for mutual connection and even love. And in this love they perceive the Creator because He is common to them.
There is nothing else left in common. And therefore, through such an action they can reveal Him, that is, a special property, a special feeling, the center of the world.
Question: Are you saying that this property, the Creator, must manifest itself between them?
Answer: I think that it must manifest itself because it comes precisely for this purpose from above.
Question: And their division and hatred comes from above?
Answer: Separation and hatred come so that they try to connect with each other and find in themselves everything “against” and then everything “for.” And when they collect these fragments inside them, they will suddenly feel how they put together such an interesting puzzle that they will discover a single force, a single property, a single matter of nature.
Question: And then will this connection between them become real?
Answer: Yes. And besides, they will discover a new life in this connection, a life already spiritual.
Question: So you are saying that this separation has been deliberately imposed on them?
Answer: Of course.
Question: That is, it was induced because they were already capable of connection?
Answer: That is why it all happens in our generation. And if they could not come to a mutual connection, then there would be no such thing. This is precisely because we in our generation can do it.
I wish them to rise above their egoism, which blinds them, and to understand that in fact it is the Creator who pushes them toward love.
These are already the beginnings of the next state of humanity when people will discover the absolute inconsistency in the previous level, as different in all respects. And now at this stage, they must unite.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/10/22
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Question: The Talmud says that the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved. Why is she created as if from the middle?
Answer: Because the female part is created from the middle of the spiritual system Zeir Anpin, which represents the male part. But this does not mean that she is a consequence or an unnecessary appendix-type addition in relation to the male system.
On the contrary. Coming from the male part, she really grows up to his level. The Talmud speaks about this based on Kabbalah, from the knowledge of the inner part of nature. This is how our souls develop; first the male part of the soul, and then the female part. It has nothing to do with our bodies.
But from the examples of our world, we see that, on one hand, a woman, according to her nature, is in need of support, attention, and guardianship by a man. On the other hand, thanks to this care and attention, she grows to a level equal to him.
Then she can give him something that he himself will never achieve.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Siamese Twins” 9/19/10
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To come to complete transformation and exit to the next level, humanity must reach the state of revealing a terrible evil: when people will literally devour each other, children and parents will hate each other, man will live in a house among his haters, among the most ardent enemies. We will reach such a state so that we force ourselves to look for a way out of it, a real way out, i.e., to rise above our nature and not just embellish it.
Nature will force us to deal not with all sorts of small compensations and small improvements, but to reach a complete crisis where we cannot do anything with it in education, upbringing, social relations, broken families, drugs, depression, technology, or financial affairs.
The crisis will cover everything that man does. And regarding the surrounding nature, there will be an ecological crisis. When all this begins to put pressure on us from the outside and from the inside, from all sides, then we will feel that we are obliged to do something.
Only then will we realize that there is an exit to the outer world: a small hole in the sphere in which we exist. This way out is in changing our egoistic nature.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Unwanted Children” 11/28/10
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“What Is The Meaning Of Life And Why Are We Here?” (Quora)
A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better (Ecclesiastes 7:1-3).
In general, Kabbalah teaches that a person should think about what his life amounts to. King Solomon reached the answer. He was at a very high kabbalistic level.
Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) is a great book written by him from what is called the left side of creation (kav small, left line). King Solomon reveals the questions one should ask oneself and the required search for answers, otherwise one’s life would be meaningless.
When King Solomon says, A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth, he means the day of death of the ego in a person and his ascent to the next degree. King Solomon achieved this, therefore he is considered the wisest of all. That is, he absorbed the entire light of wisdom precisely because he prepared himself for spiritual ascent.
The Book of Zohar has a whole chapter dedicated to Ecclesiastes. It reveals what is written in the light of Kabbalah, the light of the entire structure of the universe, and explains how a person should enter Ecclesiastes in order to see this world, this ascent, and this perspective through the eyes of King Solomon.
True perspectives are being revealed before us. It turns out Solomon was right to say that sorrow is better than laughter because in this a person sheds his former shallowness, pride, and empty fulfillment to arrive at total devastation. Before that, he never questioned the true meaning of life. He simply existed like a small animal. But once he arrives at this question, he must find an answer to it.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Summing Up” 4/7/10
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 4, Item 20
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