Comment: There is so much depth in the articles we read! It seems like I have already heard it, read it ten times, and ten times there is something new.

My Response: It is because you need not to read, but to attain. You need to change yourself, to rise above yourself. Then the content will be within you.

Question: Let’s say you look at the text and enter into it, how do you make all these transformations?

Answer: I do not enter into anything. It surfaces inside me. Or you can say that I am speculatively entering the spiritual world inside me.

Question: While studying, for example, The Book of Zohar, you give us certain recommendations: read in this way, think in that way, together, and everyone adapts to it. But you are still talking, and what we hear is limited, we do not really hear what you are asking us to do.

Perhaps this is our fantasy working. How well do your students work with the material that you give?

Answer: I cannot say. They work as much as they can. I am both satisfied and dissatisfied, but this is what it is.

Question: While studying, should a person just endure it or look for something within himself? For example, you give definitions, but they are so abstract that there is nothing to cling to in order to find these images within me.

Answer: Search—everything is within you! I understand that you cannot grasp where it is in you. It is spinning somewhere out there, but it is not clear exactly where. This is the work.

Question: What about fantasy, when a person begins to invent something for himself?

Answer: This is wrong. We need not fantasy, but attainment and work in a group.

Question: What is the difference between attainment and understanding?

Answer: You understand with a brain that is silly and disconnected from reality. You do not know if this is correct or not. Today you understand it this way and tomorrow in a different way. It is logical in accordance with some facts and with some theory that is inside you. This is an understanding or even, maybe, an awareness.

Attainment, however, is something that leaves no doubt and cannot be changed since it is the revelation of the Creator’s system within you to the extent that you have become similar to it. Meaning, this is absolute!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Study Kabbalistic Texts?” 2/16/13

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Question: Looking at modern bloggers, you see how they earn millions of likes, millions of views. Quite a lot of people watch them. There is a constant criticism with piercing hatred and lowering of others. And the more you do it, whether you belong to the right or the left, it does not matter, the more people listen and hear you.

And those who say: “Let’s live peacefully, let’s build good connections and love each other” are not heard.

Tell me, where are we heading today?

Answer: These are such times.

Before, times were not so ideologically clear. One did not have to choose to be this or that. Everything was more common.

Comment: Yes, it was possible to talk about peace and friendship. No one was chasing views or likes back then.

My Response: Because there was no money behind it. They are not chasing those today either; they are chasing money. Either money or fame. One of those must be behind it.

Question: If this is how we develop and keep advancing, what kind of humanity will we come to?

Answer: No, this is all going to change. This is a transitional period. Besides, there are such wars going on now and these wars will continue to develop.

Humanity needs a clear, defined goal. There is no such goal today. Therefore, there is nothing to call upon, nothing to pursue, to strive for, etc.

So, the problem of humanity is that it has lost its absolute reference points. Before, at least there was communism, capitalism, fascism, and so on. There were people involved, speakers, ideologists.

But today? There is practically nothing. This is why humanity is in such a phase that it is not pulled anywhere or moved by anything. Everything is rather vague.

Question: What will this vagueness lead to?

Answer: Egoism is constantly growing. So, we need to wait for it to demand new goals, new states from us. Our focus has to be on: “Where are we headed? Why?” None of this is here today. It should be defined.

Comment: But egoism will require real, significant pleasures.

Answer: Egoism will require to be filled.

Question: What will fill it? What do you think will fill it in the future? It is clear what kind of fillings we had in the past.

Answer: Today we are also talking about fulfilling egoism: either conquering, or doing something to another, some nasty trick, etc. Or to harshly criticize—this also fulfills the egoism of both you and the viewer. These are all fillings.

But these fillings will be increasingly acute, explicit, egoistic, antagonistic: it is good for me, bad for you, and so on. Today, all this is getting relatively smoothed out somehow as we are in an intermediate phase of development.

Question: Will this flow of criticism and hatred lead to hearing those who talk about good connections and love?

Answer: I am afraid that it will not come to good connections, love, or conversations about it. People will start devouring each other. There will be such an egoistic explosion.

Question: And will this lead to some kind of a change?

Answer: I do not believe one will instantly lead to the other.

Comment: You used to be more optimistic.

Answer: Yes. Today, it is spreading more and more. So I do not think we are in a state where there will be sudden changes in society or people.

Question: So you do not have an optimistic forecast?

Answer: No.

Comment: No? This is not a good ending.

My Response: This is a realistic conclusion. It is realistic. I do not think the world is about to embrace the recognition of evil.

This is what we must come to. And then bounce back from it to good. It is not there yet. To do so, society must accumulate vast experience and understanding of what is happening today. This has not happened yet.

The world does not understand that it needs to get rid of egoism, of this petty, bourgeois fuss: who buys cheaper, better, more, etc. Just look what countries or people are busy with? After all, they must change their values to more exalted ones. But it is not what we are coming to.

Question: What values characterize the next step of humanity?

Answer: The answer to the question: “What do I live for?” The fact that I exist is clear; the fact that I need to exist, I understand. But what for? This question does not live in people yet, it does not manifest itself.

Comment: So, you say that at least this question is a question of overturning…

Answer: Oh, if such a question were formed, humanity would have already been wailing: “What do we live for?”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/27/22

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In the News (“DNA Teleportation. Really?”): “French virologist Dr. Luc Montagnier, who was awarded a share of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, passed away on February 8. The Prize, awarded for his 1983 discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), was richly deserved but was not without controversy. …

“In 2009, the year after he won the Nobel prize, Dr. Montagnier published a paper that smacked of the widely discredited experiment described by immunologist Jacques Benveniste in a 1988 paper in Nature. Benveniste suggested that water has some sort of memory, retaining a ghostly profile of a substance that had been dissolved in it even after that substance was no longer present. …

“In step with Benveniste, Montagnier in his curious paper, published in a journal of which he himself was Editor in Chief, claimed that he had detected electromagnetic signals in water that had previously held viral DNA even after the DNA had been filtered and the water repeatedly diluted. The signals were recorded by a microphone coil and sent by email to a group in Italy where it was transmitted to a sample of distilled water in a sealed metal tube. When placed in a PCR machine, this water, which contained nothing, was able to direct the synthesis of DNA that turned out to be identical to Montagnier’s original. Basically, this was a claim that DNA could be teleported. “Beam me up, Scottie!” The scientific establishment was stunned. Here was a Nobel Prize winner making a totally implausible claim. Needless to say, nobody has been able to duplicate the experiment.”

My Response: The same exists in physics, when microparticles located billions of light-years away instantly connect between themselves and communicate with each other.

Comment: Some scientists—in particular academician Peter Garyaev—stated that cells in the human body are also arranged according to the principle of teleportation, which means that any cell instantly knows what is happening in another.

As a researcher, he was posing the questions: “How is this information being transmitted? On what medium?”

My Response: It is not transmitted anywhere, but exists constantly and everywhere in its entirety. A time of transmission does not exist; after all, time practically does not exist. This is the paradox. That is why science has reached a dead end and cannot advance further.

Wherein do we have the crisis in science? We have come to a state where our research depends on our qualities. And here is where the problem arises, we have to change our qualities in order to start breaking into new areas.

The universe and everything around us is arranged, as physicists or biologists say, according to a holographic principle. There is a holographic picture in which everything is interconnected. If we see two parts separated from each other, we are looking at the same object from different angles (from one side, then from the other side) and therefore it seems to us that these are two objects. In fact, everything is one object. Consequently there is no transmission—there is no one to transmit.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Human Genome” 7/17/11

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic, “The 15^th of Av: The Day of Love” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 2, “Inner Light,” Item 2

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “nnnnNAMEeeeee“

What is the meaning of life? At a certain point, we realize that there is no sense in living, that we live in vain. Life passes us by every day, and maybe it would be best if we did not exist to begin with?

Indeed, we have sought the meaning of life for thousands of years, and we as a humanity have yet to find an ultimate meaning to life. It is as if we live in order to ask this most fundamental question in every generation and to not find an answer to it.

The question about the meaning of life arises within us involuntarily. Although it might seem better and easier not to ask about the meaning of life, if it would be so, then we would remain at the animal level. Humans, rather, keep evolving, and our constant development is expressed in us increasingly asking about the meaning of life from one generation to the next.

We cannot help but ask about the meaning of life and why we are here. The mere fact that we keep questioning ourselves will bring us to the point when someday we will start discovering the real answer to life’s biggest question. I hope that such a day will come very soon.

What, then, is the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is to discover the meaning of life.

What is it though? We will need to discover it. We live in this world in order to seek the answer to specifically that question, and we all subconsciously seek its answer regardless of age, nationality, gender and profession. We are locked in a constant search for the meaning of life, and we have no idea about the base motivation behind such a search.

It might seem as if some people manage to find themselves in life, saying that they live life well and achieve a lot, regardless of a specific search for the meaning of life, but such people simply convince themselves of such statements. However, the desire to find the meaning of life lives within them as it does with everybody, otherwise they would not be alive to begin with.

Every moment of our life starts with the question about why we are living. We do not realize it, and we thus live through the given moment, and then in the next moment we ask ourselves that same question—”What am I living for?”—and we do so time and again. We continue living in such a way during the course of our entire lives, but we still lack a clear answer. Nonetheless, we re-enter that quest, living through every moment with that question at its basis, and move throughout our lives in such a way. Our life’s flow is a continuous question about the meaning of life and a constant search for an answer that we never discover.

Moreover, the question—“What is the meaning of life?”—precedes our physiological perception. It is our most important and fundamental question. Moreover, it is a question that relates to our spiritual quest. After we ask about the meaning of our lives, our body and our organs start revitalizing and blossoming, and we develop as such.

Eventually, after living millions of diverse lives, we eventually will indeed find the meaning of life, which is to reach a clear perception and sensation of the source of all life. We will all reach that discovery. At a certain point of our development, we will shift from unconsciously asking about the meaning of our lives at every moment, to a state where we will start seeking the meaning of life consciously. That is, we will improve in our ability to imagine what the source of our lives is, and how, on what basis, with what qualities and intentions, we can approach it, grabbing hold of it like a baby to its mother. When we do so, we will then have a certain tool by which we can start connecting with the meaning of our lives, and when we reach that stage, then we will start actively seeking our lives’ source, working out what it wants from us, what we expect from it, and why the entire meaning of life is only to eventually draw and adhere to the source of our lives. At such a point, will we truly start absorbing and understanding the meaning of life.

The search for the meaning of life is a pathway to eternity, and eternity is a state of constantly coming closer to the source of our lives, increasingly holding onto, clinging to, and adhering to it.

Based on the video “What Is the Meaning of Life? Why Do We Ask about the Meaning of Life?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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My new article on Linkedin “ The Clash between Islam and Judaism ”

The never-ending clash between Israel and the Islamic world is far deeper than a dispute over land or territory. The ultimate purpose of Islam is to rule the world. It may take years, decades, centuries, or millennia, but the ultimate goal is for Islam to govern the planet. They have patience, persistence, devotion to their faith, and as we can see, Islam is making headway the world over. Jews, on the other hand, have no ideology at all. Currently, our only ideology is to indulge in selfish pleasures. But at the basis of our nation lies a unique idea that neither Islam nor any other religion can accept: love of others as much as one loves oneself.

Currently, Jews do not give a second thought to this idea; they are as afraid of it as any other faith, if not more so, since they are the ones tasked with spreading it around the world. But Jews, as we said, are immersed in the exact opposite of love of others, and therefore no one spreads this notion today, and this is what our world looks like: a planet whose inhabitants fight against each other to the death.

Because our current way of life has nothing to do with our vocation, and everything to do with indulgence, the tendency among Jews in Israel is to seek a quieter place elsewhere. When Zionists first came to Israel, they believed that our historic homeland was the place where we could build a safe haven for the Jews. We did not look for a place where we could realize our calling—to love our neighbor as ourselves and become a light of unity to the nations. Instead, we only sought a place where we would not be slaughtered and persecuted.

In the first years of Israel’s existence, there was an intense feeling of existential threat. This made us come together whenever the conflict with our neighbors became violent. Over the past several decades, we have come to realize that our enemies are not strong enough to annihilate the Jewish state. They can hurt us, but they cannot demolish the country.

As a result, we turned once more toward indulgence, just as we did while we were in the Diaspora. Since the modern State of Israel was not established on the ideology of mutual responsibility and love of others, but as an attempt to find safety, the minute we did not need unity as a means of survival, we threw it out the window.

Now, our enemies rejoice when they see us clashing with each other. They know that if they are patient, we will disintegrate from within and they will not need to fight against us on the battlefield.

If we want to have a foothold in the land of Israel, we must rethink our reason for being here. Israel is no longer considered a safe haven. Even for those who do come here for reasons of personal safety, it is no longer a strong enough motivation to remain here. The future of the country depends on understanding the real purpose of the Jewish people and embracing its vocation.

The “ideology” of the Jewish people is love of others. This was the basis of our peoplehood when we first became a nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Therefore, only if we strive for it do we merit the title “people of Israel,” and the right to live in the land of Israel, the land of the people who strive to love each other as themselves and set an example that will be a light to the nations.

We currently have no idea about our vocation, yet our existence in this country depends on knowing it. Therefore, educating ourselves and our children about the meaning and purpose of the Israeli nation is vital for our future. If we want to win the ideological war with Islam, then just as they are taught to hate Jews from infancy, we should teach our children to love others. If we bolster our solidarity and increase our unity, no enemy will stand against us.

Real Judaism is not about services and customs. Real Judaism means rising above our selfishness, uniting above the ego, loving (or at least striving to love) each other as ourselves, and doing these in order to be a light to the nations, to set an example for the world.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Bring Back the Pioneer Spirit”

When I came to Israel in 1974, I was sent to a hotel that accommodated new olim (Jews who had just immigrated to Israel). Each family was given a room and we slept, dined, and learned Hebrew there. One day, I found out that one of the waiters serving us in the dining hall was actually the owner of the hotel. He had donated his hotel for several years to help new olim in their first steps. I was amazed to discover that there were people with such spirit. That man was a true pioneer, and it was the pioneer spirit that drove him to do what he did. That spirit did not let him sit by, but galvanized him to do something meaningful in his life. Today, this spirit is a rarity, and we desperately need to find a way to bring it back to life.

The pioneer spirit exists in the heart of every Jew. After all, every Jew is a descendant of pioneers who paved the way for a new social model of mutual responsibility and solidarity, which was unheard of at the time. Until Abraham began to spread his ideas about mercy and love of others, and until Moses had turned the descendants of Abraham’s group into a nation, the idea of a nation fashioned by transcending one’s ego was unthinkable. The prevailing conduct was that the strong rules and subjugates or annihilates the weak, both among nations and among individuals. Here, however, was a new concept, embodied in the words of King Solomon (Prov. 10:12): “Hate stirs up strife, and love will cover all crimes.”

The Golden Rule, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” represents the core of being Jewish. It is not a commandment to do something or say something. Nor is it a commandment to praise a deity or worship it. It is simply a commandment to love others as much as you love yourself.

The pioneers who established the State of Israel did a great job at founding a sovereign country in a land that was largely swamp and desert when they came here, and against six charging armies that sought to annihilate the Jewish presence in the Middle East. However, they did not finish the job. They established a state, but now it is up to us to nurture the soul and spirit of that state so as to merit the name the “State of Israel,” a country that hallows one and only law, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

If we take the next step and fill the heart of the Israeli people with the Israeli spirit of solidarity, mutual responsibility, and above all, love of others, it will be our final triumph. No one will challenge our presence here because everyone will realize that we are not here for ourselves, but for the world, to carry out our calling and be a light to the nations, spreading the light of unity and friendship above all differences and conflicts. If we rise above our internal divisions toward unity and love, we will complete our ancestors’ task, and their pioneering spirit of caring for others will spread around the world.

Therefore, the only war we need to wage is against our egos. The only victory we need is the victory of unity over division.
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Filed under: Israel, Israel Today, New Publications, Unity - No Comments →

Question: Let’s say a person living in this world feels some kind of descent or ascent: good or bad mood, and some situations happen to him. Is it all the effect of light?

Answer: Yes, of course. This is how we feel the light. It transforms within us into all kinds of scenes and images.

But in principle, there is nothing but light and the desire opposite to it. These two opposite qualities—light (the desire to bestow, to fill) and the opposite desire to receive, i.e., positive and negative qualities—exist only in nature. Their combinations with each other are presented to us as all kinds of objects and phenomena.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/19/22

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Question: What is the connection between Reshimot, and is there an influence of the point in the heart on them?

Answer: The point in the heart is the central and foremost hidden desire in us. We have to connect it with the desires of other people and with the Creator. Then we will bring the entire creation to the correction, to one single desire called “Adam.”

All human history is the revelation of Reshimot.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/12/22

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