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World Kabbalah Convention “Preparation to the Lesson 3″

World Kabbalah Convention, “Deriving Joy from Unity with the Creator,” Lesson 3

Selected Highlights Lesson 3

World Kabbalah Convention “Preparation to the Lesson 4”

World Kabbalah Convention, “Embracing Humanity Through Bestowal and Joy,” Lesson 4

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My new article on Linkedin “The Omen of Financial Hardships”

The recent study by Gallup and West Health, which found that rising healthcare costs have forced nearly 100 million Americans “to delay or skip healthcare treatments, trim regular household expenses or borrow money,” could bode ill for Jews. Since the turn of the century, antisemitism has been on the rise around the world, including in the US, and antisemites are becoming more brazen and more aggressive. The problem is that for many years, American Jewry believed that antisemitism cannot happen in America. As a result, they often fail to recognize the warning signs, even when they flare up before them. Now that financial hardships have come to a level where Americans are forgoing necessities, it is an omen they should not ignore.

The majority of today’s American Jewry grew up in a relatively antisemitism free society. Jew-hatred was a taboo, and even if you felt it, you were forbidden to express it. Overt antisemitism is still not mainstream in America, so it is often portrayed as anti-Israel feelings, but the veil is very thin and can easily show its true face.

Before World War II, and even during the war, antisemitism was a recognized fact. There were antisemitic radio shows, clubs where Jews were not allowed, and other open expressions of the oldest hatred. The fact that it became illegal and morally reprehensible to show that you hated Jews did not make it disappear. It only tucked it away in wait for a more favorable time to rear its ugly head again. Now is a more favorable time, and it is rearing its head.

At such a time, Jews should lower their profile and forgo complacency. The current situation where Jews are occupying key positions that are often the target of political confrontation is not good for them. The losing side will readily blame them for its defeat. Even if it does not express it, it will feel it and, given the right opportunity, it will express it.

What is true for American Jews is also true for Jews around the world. Antisemitism has been rising everywhere. In many places, it is already mainstream, condemned by some, embraced by others, and gradually gaining prevalence and popularity.

Just as is happening in America, the worsening economic conditions make a fertile ground for outbreaks of Jew-hatred. As matters are continuing to deteriorate, the eruption of anti-Jewish sentiments is more likely to happen. It will not be long before Jews around the world are persecuted once again, just as they have been for two millennia.

However, if previously, ruthless leaders were using them as a scapegoat or as a means to manipulate the masses to their side, this time, it will come from the masses. There will be no need for a leader to incite against the Jews; regular people will do so spontaneously, and will accompany their words with actions. It will not be an endemic outbreak; persecution of Jews in the coming round will be worldwide and emerging from the people rather than from leaders.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Unwise Smartest People”

A famous Israeli singer recently wrote on social media that Operation Breaking Dawn, the three-day military campaign in May in which Israel fought against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, may have been a military victory, but it did not solve anything. Other than making us feel good about ourselves, it accomplished nothing. If anything, the pride is detrimental to us, rather than beneficial.

The singer also referred to the reputation of the Jewish people as being the smartest in the world. He said that our ingenuity in developing sophisticated defense systems makes us dangerously complacent and smug.

I agree with this statement because weapons, however sophisticated and advanced, will not bring us peace. At best, they can give us a respite from active hostilities, but if we use the pause to rest or build even more sophisticated weapons, and think that this is all we need to do, then we are a stupid smartest people.

We need to understand that weapons, however effective and advanced, will not end our wars because weapons do not bring peace. The saying si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war), is true only if our definition of peace is absence of active hostilities. This is not the definition of peace as I know it.

In Hebrew, the word shalom (peace) comes from the word hashlama (complementarity). Complementarity is when two contradictory, alien, and often hostile parties forge a bond that transcends their disagreements and conflicts. They do not suppress or cancel their disputes, but value unity more than the cause of their conflict. Therefore, they form a bond that is stronger than the reason for their fight.

Indeed, the bond must be stronger than the conflict so as not to break under the pressure of the division. It follows that the harder the dispute, the stronger must be the unity that the parties build, if they wish to maintain peace.

Achieving such peace requires working on connection, on bonding. It requires constant elevation of the value of unity, solidarity, cohesion, and mutual responsibility. This is the people of Israel’s only “weapon” that will give us real and lasting peace—first among ourselves, and subsequently with our neighbors.

It will not be easy. We are not only smart; we are also very selfish. There is no question that preferring unity to the pleasure of self-righteousness is not easy. On top of that, we lack the basic wisdom to understand that our strength lies in our connection, and that this is our only road to victory. But difficult or not, unity is still our only tool for achieving final victory.

Our successes on the battlefield buy us time, but we must use them wisely. If we use them to rest, we will eventually lose. If we use our breaks from active hostilities to strengthen our connection, we will promote peace within Israel and with our neighbors. This is Israel’s only hope for peace, and the only smart move that the smartest people can make.
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Medium published my new article “On the Borderline”

There is a reason for the apocalyptic talk that is so prevalent these days. The threat of the Russia-Ukraine war turning nuclear at the beginning of the war, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station that has become a center-point of contention, the growing tension between China and Taiwan, with the active involvement of the US, the constant threat of North Korea to use nuclear weapons — all these and more give the uneasy feeling that the world is on the brink of disaster. There are less catastrophic, but still very painful processes, which are already underway. Inflation is soaring in the US and Europe, accompanied by recessions, and the erratic, violent climate only exacerbates the situation.

These crises are happening concurrently because we are truly on the borderline. We are heading into a new era where our previous, self-centered way of life will become obsolete.

We are shifting from the selfish era into an era of such complete connection and mutual dependence that selfish thoughts, much less selfish acts, will not be tolerated. We will have to learn to be mutually considerate, initially, and mutually caring, ultimately. We will not be able to choose not to care for others because not caring will mean not surviving.

It will not be a bad world. On the contrary, it will be a world where everyone is responsible and cares for everyone else, a world where we will not have to tend to ourselves because everyone else will do it for us. It will be a world without abuse, wars, or crime. The only crime will be inconsideration, selfishness.

I have no doubt these words seem fantastic today. Indeed, we are still far from it. However, revolutions of this kind do not happen overnight; they are a process, and we are already well into it.

The reason I am writing about this now is that we are already on the borderline. We should begin to familiarize ourselves with the concepts and rules that will govern our lives in the future because the sooner we know them, and begin to live by them, the smoother the transition will be.

If we resist the trajectory of the evolution of the world, the threatening situations we are seeing today will materialize. If we embrace these changes, they will happen smoothly and pleasantly. I hope we will choose the latter.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is the world becoming more godless?“

We live in times of ever-growing concealment from the upper force, which is why our world seems to be getting darker from one day to the next. That is, we increasingly find ourselves in wars, struggles and anxieties with no end to them in sight.

This is actually the revelation of the upper force, the Creator—but in a negative form. We can invert this revelation into its positive, but one way or another, the Creator is coming closer to us. It is like a big comet flying toward our planet from outer space and we get told that it will hit us in 20 years.

For the time being, we are in the dark, and this darkness is the lack of the correct revelation of the Creator. It is also a sign that the Creator is coming closer to us. The upper light wants to appear, but we do not let it, and we thus perceive an ever-expanding darkness sweeping over our world.

We need to invert this darkness into a great light. Doing so depends solely on human relations. If we change our relations—inverting our attitude to each other from divisive to united, hateful to loving, and prioritizing self-benefit to prioritizing the benefit of others—then everything that we feel as darkness will immediately invert to light. We will then experience a newfound harmony, peace and happiness—the likes of which we have never experienced before.

Based on the video “Why Is Darkness Abounding in Our World?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Teach Your Children Well”

A few days before the beginning of the school year in Israel, the feeling here is that the education system has seen better times. Many teachers are quitting, especially the young and more gifted ones, and few are filling the blanks. A teacher’s salary is unattractive in Israel, to say the least, they have no respect from parents or students, and their social status is poor. In consequence, the entire system is now on the brink of collapse. In this column, I would like to relate to the role that parents can play in improving children’s education, and to the basic principles that I believe should guide a successful education system.

First, we need to realize that expecting parents to actively participate in improving the education system is unrealistic; it will not happen. Parents cannot and will not take responsibility for their children’s education. They were not taught how to do this, and they do not want the burden. Parents pay hefty sums for education in Israel, which is supposed to be free, and the Ministry of Education has the biggest budget of all government offices, except, perhaps, the defense budget, so parents rightly feel that this should suffice to finance proper education for their children.

In fact, one way to solve the problem is to indeed shut down the entire education system and establish a private one, instead, where parents’ payments will go directly and only toward their children’s education. Currently, when the government funds education, it spends the money where it wants, only some of it actually goes toward the education system, and no one is happy.

Even now, when the children purportedly get everything they need at school, parents who want their children to do well at school and continue to higher education must pay extra for extracurricular lessons, which are very expensive. This is actually one way to get the parents accustomed to privatizing the education system.

There is, of course, the justified fear that the haves will get better education than the have nots, but this is already the case, so in that sense, a private system will not be worse than the current one. If the entire system is privatized, parents will at least know what they are paying for, what they are getting in return, and they will be able to make educated decisions on their expenses.

At the same time, we do want all the children, and not only those from affluent families, to receive a good education. After all, children are the future of any country, including the State of Israel. To provide a good education for everyone, a team of highly skilled, unaffiliated professionals in education should design a system that is not related or obligated to any political system, but is committed only to the benefit of the children and to producing optimum education.

That education must incorporate far more than implanting information in children’s brains. Educating is not indoctrinating. Educating means teaching children how to be successful grownups. Being successful does not mean that people know a set of required information. Success depends first and foremost on a person’s social skills, and not a person’s level of schooling.

Acquiring social skills means learning to communicate, cooperate, share, take others’ perspectives in mind, be considerate, listen to others, and express oneself in non-threatening ways. These are all essential skills for life. In fact, they are the skills we use the most. Yet, we teach none of them at school, and for the most part, parents do not have the time, energy, or skills to teach them. As a result, children grow up to be emotionally ill-equipped adults who have to cope with relationships at home, at college, at work, with spouses and partners, yet they lack the knowhow.

If we want to teach our children well, we must build a system that teaches children to be human beings, first, and knowledgeable people, next. We must invest directly in the education system, and see to it that education means providing social skills, learning skills, and information, in that order.
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We must remember that the entire wisdom of Kabbalah is founded on spiritual matters that do not take up time or space. They are not subject to change or absence and all the changes that are spoken of in this wisdom do not imply that the first form becomes absent and is replaced by a different form. The above change rather implies an additional form, while the first does not move from its place (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot).

Question: What is this spiritual reality that has neither time nor space? How can one imagine it practically, not philosophically?

Answer: The Creator created desire. The desire itself is called “place,” and the thing it desires is “fulfillment.”

Fulfillment is the light that fills a desire, which feels itself being empty. And once it is full of light, it feels itself as being perfect.
The entire creation consists of these two substances, the place and the fulfillment.

Question: How should we imagine this? Should we imagine that this happened once upon a time or is happening now?

Answer: It is best to imagine that it happened in the past. Just like the Ari wrote: Know that before the emanated beings were emanated and the created beings created, an upper, simple light had filled the entire reality.

What does reality mean? It means a place. Then the Ari explains that it is the desire to feel light as fulfillment. The quality of light is to fill this desire in order to give it pleasure.

All this was happening before the Big Bang, before our corporeal reality appeared.
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From KabTV’s The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES), 8/14/22

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Tree of Life —The Book About the Creation of the Worlds
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Question: What would happen if all Jews leave Europe?

Answer: I do not think this is going to happen. When the Jews in France wanted to leave (there were half a million of them there) the newspapers wrote that France could be shut down. Meaning, their participation in the management of industry, science, and art is such that nothing would remain of France. I do not know to what extent this is true. I am not connected with it, but this is what happened.

In addition, throughout history we have seen such examples that when Jews left countries, the countries declined.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 8/5/22

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Where Should The French Jews Go?
The Strongest Weapon
Exercises In A Sweet Wrapper

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Question: You said that in everything one should see the manifestation of the Creator, except for “leave.” But is “leaving” an inner feeling? After all, you are not being kicked out.

Answer: “Leaving” is an inner state when you are dragged all over the place seemingly by your personal thoughts, decisions, conjectures, and so on. And you resist them.

This does not refer to some external problems that a person has with a group, or at work, or at home, and therefore he is thrown out, no! These are precisely his internal problems, the inner call that tells him: “Go, do something more real, more necessary.” Therefore, he finds an excuse for himself and leaves.

But there are those who, despite all the real excuses, despite everything, say: “No! I will be engaged only in my spiritual advancement, and in everything else, only to the extent required for me to exist. Otherwise, there is nothing in this world, in this life.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Confessions of the Kabbalist” 2/23/13

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A Disturbance Is Help From The Creator
Virtuous Disturbances
The Beginning Of Serious Spiritual Work

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