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“Is There a Substitute to Substance Abuse?” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “Is There a Substitute to Substance Abuse?

On June 26, the UN marked the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. The message of the Secretary-General for that day was, “We cannot allow the world’s drug problem to further shadow the lives of the tens of millions of people living through humanitarian crises. On this important day,” he suggested, “let us commit to lifting this shadow once and for all, and giving this issue the attention and action it deserves.” In my opinion, as long as people want to escape from life, and as long as drugs are so accessible, substance abuse and drug addiction will continue to plague humanity.

Life has always been tough. These days, it is even tougher for many, if not most of us. Because drugs are so accessible these days, teenagers and young adults who used to “get away from it all” by drinking or smoking, now do it with drugs, and even hard drugs. It gives them a good high, disconnects their thoughts from the pitfalls of life, and allows them to feel relieved and happy, even if it is transitory and subsequently leads to deeper downs.

Besides, drugs are good business. Too many people in top positions make too much money for the discussion about eliminating drug abuse to be relevant.

By “top positions,” I am not talking about the addicts or the dealers. I am talking about policymakers in positions that pay top dollar, whose job is to decry the plague of drug and substance abuse, and do nothing but maintain their positions.

Like many other top brass, they view their job definition not as a mission to help humanity, but as feeding the cash cow and milking it dry. In the case of drugs, the cow feeds on more addicts, and the milk is the bloated budgets that organizations for “preventing drug abuse” receive in order to perpetuate the problem while pretending to fight it.

This is why, according to the UN’s own statistics, drug sales over the dark web nearly quadrupled between 2011-2020. If there were an intention to eliminate drug abuse, those who are at the top of the system would have long been fired. But since there is no such goal, those people are hailed as heroes and their budgets are bloated even more, to cope with the “escalating” crisis.

If we want to truly deal with the issue of drug abuse, we first need to decide what we want to do with addicts. Do we want them to live, or do we want them to vanish? If it is the latter, authorities must provide them with proper conditions to live out their lives until they are gone. If we cannot convince people that there is more to life than escaping from it, we should at least enable them to escape life with dignity until they are gone.

At the same time, we should make drugs inaccessible, as simple as that. That is, if we are willing to cull the well-paying jobs of those in charge of “fighting” against drug abuse. If we genuinely choose to eliminate drugs, we should eliminate access to them. This is the first step.

Then, we should offer a substitute. Not everyone will want it, but we should nevertheless offer a substitute that can satisfy the need that pushes at least some of the people into drug abuse and other forms of escapism.

The substitute that we should offer drug users is supportive human connections. Just as the veterans from Vietnam, many of whom were heavy drug users while in service, stopped once they returned to their families, we should offer the same feeling to current addicts.

This feeling of family warmth, acceptance, and the knowledge that people care about you, is the ingredient that is being depleted from society at the fastest rate. And without confidence and a sense of security, people will be afraid to face life and will opt for escapism. Human connection is the only antidote to drug abuse. It does not cost a thing, it does not pay top dollar, it has very poor PR, but it works like a charm. Making people feel welcome and safe will make them hooked on life.

“What Hamas Leader Knows, and What He Doesn’t” (Times of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Hamas Leader Knows, and What He Doesn’t

A few days ago, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Palestinians to prepare to return to Palestine. He declared that Israel is in a state of political disintegration that reflects the dead-end to which the Zionist enterprise has come. “The beginning of defeat,” he said, “is disintegration from within.” Haniyeh added that because of it, the Palestinians are “at a time of victories, and a generation of great changes.” While his observations are correct, he does not know that from the place where Israel falls, from that same place it rises.

In many ways, Haniyeh is like Haman from the biblical story of Esther. As with Haman, Israel will suffer more and more blows from the wicked, who will grow stronger and stronger and become ever more confident. As with Haman, in the end the Jews will unite and everything that the wicked one has built will turn against him.

For the time being, Israel is indeed disintegrated. We are a divided society whose views range from one extreme to the other on every single issue. We are wholly divided on the issue of the conflict with the Palestinians. We are equally divided on the issue of imposing religious laws, on identity politics and wokeness, and on anything that concerns more than one person.

We know we are divided but we do not care. We do not care even when our worst enemy tells us that this is why we are weak. When will we wake up? On the edge of the precipice.

When we wake up, we will realize that all our divisions are incentives to unite. Since we do not want to unite, and instead choose division and derision, our separation worsens, our enemies point out that this is our weakness, and warn us that they will defeat us because of our division.

Now that our division is well in place, as are the warnings of our enemies, we must decide whether to heed the warnings and unite, or wait for the whip to lash and painfully force us to rise above our mutual aversion. If we choose unity before we are whipped, no lashes will be necessary. The sooner we move toward each other, the sooner the world will understand that the reason they hated us was our disunity, and that unity is our protection from hatred, our guarantee of safety.
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“The Summer Break Should Not Be a Break” (Times of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Summer Break Should Not Be a Break

Israel has a lot of children. Out of approximately nine million people, 2.5 million are younger than 18. Tomorrow, July 1st, they will all begin a two-month summer break. While many teenagers work during the summer, many do not, and they and the rest of the children in Israel are idle most of the summer, looking for things to do with their time. This is very bad for them and for society. If I had a say about it, there would not be a break. The summer would be used to provide children with extras: fun sports, exciting science lessons, improving social connections, and understanding what it means to be Jewish, and, in particular, Israeli.

The last two items on the list—improving social connections and understanding what it means to be an Israeli—actually go together. Children should not be oblivious to the world they live in. They should know the purpose of their existence and their goal in life since childhood. This will give them orientation and prevent confusion, frustration, and depression.

Children need to understand the system that binds us all together. Specifically, Israeli children need to understand the role of the people of Israel, since as Israelis, they bear the responsibility to do what the world needs the State of Israel to do: exemplify unity.

This is also why it is important to teach children, especially Israeli children, how to nurture good social connections from a very early age. They need to know not only how to be friendly to others, but why disagreements between them occur, how to relate to them, and how to actively overcome conflicts between them.

In order to help Israeli children accept the responsibility they bear, they must be made to feel proud that they have been given such a worthy task, to be a model of unity for humanity. At the same time, they need to learn that the bonding between them is not for their own sake, but for the sake of humankind.

I am writing about the program I would propose because although Israeli children are “born into” the responsibility, as is proven by the fact that the world blames Israel for every problem in the world, the necessity to learn to get along applies to all of humanity.

When every country in the world is tied to every other country, it is essential that we all learn to improve our social ties and understand the purpose of our existence. Teaching children why the world exists, why their social relationships are so important to the survival of humanity, how to maintain and even improve good relationships will not only impact children, but will also have a positive impact on adult society.‎

Granted, summer break should not be all work and no play, but this program is vital for the children. It should include sports games, exciting science lessons, and they should also have free time. But by the end of summer, when the children return to school, they should be better, more educated individuals than when they left for the summer.
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“Is it possible to love your enemy?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Is it possible to love your enemy?

There is no such thing as a person who does not hate his enemies. However, along with the hatred that we feel for our enemies, we need to also scrutinize how we can reach a state where we will love them. The uniqueness of such an approach is that with our power of good and love, we can force our enemy to love us.

Why then do we find that it is not enough for the good currently within us to overpower our enemies? We first need to build small groups with people who want to be in a common tendency to love others as themselves, where in those groups, we treat each other in a good and kind way.

Therefore, it is possible to love our enemies by exercising the love of others in small cells or groups, and gradually such a process would build a major force that would instill goodness and love even into our enemies. The wisdom of Kabbalah has a lot of material on this topic, and it provides a practical method by which we can reach such a state.

Based on the video “Is it Possible to Love Your Enemies?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Patience and Perseverance

532First of all, we need patience. I am on the path, I have to walk a few more miles to reach my goal, and so today I have to move forward at least an inch. Therefore, I have to be patient.

This patience must be dynamic, that is, effective, so that I understand that I am steadily taking another step and another step forward. I have to feel that every day I am going over new discernments. What did not work out yesterday, I am trying to do today, and I see it as advancement.

Even if I despair from the lack of success and criticize the path, this is already a success because yesterday I did not feel that there wasn’t any success, I did not understand that I was making a mistake and was not progressing. And today I feel it, and this is a part of the progress.

It is impossible to advance in any other way. Advancement always happens on the basis of descents, and problems, and revelation of the shattering. If there is no shattering, then there is nothing to correct and nowhere to advance. Therefore, the shattering was arranged even before our creation, and then we began to exist from a small informational gene (Reshimo), which began to develop.

However, here you have to be very consistent so that at the very moment you feel a lack of success, be ready to immediately continue.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/22, Writing of Rabash, Article 164 “What to Ask of the Creator – to Be His Servant”

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We Are All At the Mercy of Microchips

571.03Question: It turns out that the whole world is at the mercy of microchips. Now they are critically lacking everywhere: in healthcare, in the automotive industry, robotics, in everything. How is it that we are so dependent on them?

Answer: Because everything works according to the same system: one – zero, zero – one. The microchip connects it all. It is very simple.

Question: Are microchips everywhere today?

Answer: Everywhere, of course. How can you do anything today without this information?

Question: How did we not foresee this?

Answer: No, we were seriously working on it. We knew we had to do it this way.

Comment: We were building them. We were building the main enterprises in Taiwan, technology in America, and suddenly something doesn’t add up, and the whole world is standing still. And now it can stop altogether.

My Response: The whole world will not stop because China will not allow it.

Question: But, in principle, do you agree that almost everything is tied to microchips now?

Answer: Everything is tied up on a microchip, of course! It is very good. But the fact is that this is not a simple industry. This is not something that America will take over today and start making tomorrow.

We need to work on it, make it. It’s not something that is passed down from generation to generation like pottery or anything else. So this is a very serious obstacle, one might say, a “trap” for humanity.

In general, today’s technology requires internal development. I can be an artist, I can be a poet, and we can be “in the field of ballet ahead of the whole planet,” but this will not help!

Question: Microchip is needed?

Answer: Yes, we need a microchip. The Taiwanese can make microchips. Take someone else, a European, he can’t!

We see that nature prepares such traps for us that we will have to change involuntarily. And we need to change ourselves! Or at least we will be forced to find out what we need to change and maybe not be able to.

Question: Can we come to some kind of “spiritual microchip”? Have we been led to this?

Answer: The spiritual microchip is a connection. Nothing else. Exactly the way microchip works: zero – one. That’s it.

Question: Does the microchip also work on this principle, on connection?

Answer: Only. The connection of duality, meaning, opposites.

Question: Is it the same with the spiritual microchip? A connection of opposites?

Answer: Yes, above both opposite phenomena.

Comment: That is, one way or another, the result is still the same and the conclusion, we are being led to this.

My Response: We are led in such a way that we will just lie down and agree to be “chipped,” meaning to be connected to each other so that something smart is formed.

Just as microchips are the center, the brain and the heart, of the device, so our connection is the brain and center of the arrangement of the entire universe.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/4/22

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The Effectiveness of Spiritual Work

530The effectiveness of spiritual work depends on how much I feel its importance and the support of the environment. This means, I am connected with a group that is constantly undergoing changes in such a dynamic that we feel as if we are in a single boat sailing through a raging sea. Yet, we are heading toward the cherished goal, the promised shore.

The main thing is to realize that we are inside the field of the upper force that controls us and arranges everything both from within and from without; it changes us, confuses us, hinders us, and helps us. It plays with us like an adult does with a child, trying to awaken in us all kinds of desires and thoughts that contribute to our development so that the child grows up and becomes ready for the future adult life.

This is the help we want to receive from the Creator through the friends in the ten in order to advance spiritually.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/22, Writing of Rabash, Article 164 “What to Ask of the Creator – to Be His Servant”

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“Will the James Webb telescope see outside the observable universe?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: Will the James Webb telescope see outside the observable universe?

The James Webb Telescope can give us a view of more of the physical universe than what we previously saw, but not the forces that control matter, the spiritual forces.

Although the telescope is celebrated as a major feat of engineering, since the human ego is the base driving force behind its construction, then we will only see matter, and not the much greater forces that exist above matter.

The universe was created by forces that are above matter, above human egoistic forces, and to truly discover the deeper secrets of the universe, how it works, and what really goes on in the universe, we need to rise above the human ego, perceiving and sensing through the force of bestowal. Then, in such a newfound connection, in our new sense of bestowal, we will be able to discover the force of good that dwells in the universe and in the whole of reality, including where we are right here and now. Moreover, we will be able to work with the force of bestowal and bring nature’s forces closer to ourselves in a way that benefits us all, knowing how everything works, and for what purpose.

Based on the video “Why Kabbalists Are Unimpressed With the James Webb Telescope” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

What Can I Ask for Myself?

43Rabash writes that if a person prays for himself, then he elicits punishment on himself by this action because he thinks about himself and not about others.

How can you, while in an integrated system, think about yourself? This completely negates its integrality.

You should only pray for the things that are most necessary for you, that make it possible to exist and maintain the integrality of the whole system. Then it is called necessary and sufficient.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 5/31/22

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