Audio Version Of The Blog – 9/1/22
Posted on September 1st, 2022
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Who gave you the right?”
Once a week, filmmaker Semion Vinokur interviews me on a program called Novosti (News). In the program, Semion asks about current affairs and presents viewers’ comments. In the previous show, he presented a poignant question from a viewer who called herself (or perhaps himself) Her. Below is a translated transcript of the question with Semion’s follow-up questions, and my answers.
Question: Her writes to you as follows: I keep hearing in your clips that you say that only the Jews can change the world. Why do you take such a responsibility on your nation? And also, who gave you the right to do this? Please answer my question and don’t tell me that it is written in the Torah.
Answer: Because the method for correcting the world lies with the Jews. It was handed to us thousands of years ago.
Question: You see, we are only making ourselves stand out!
Answer: Can we make ourselves stand out more than we have been standing out throughout history?
Question: Yes, but it brings upon us resentment!
Answer: I understand this, but it is better to understand that this is the truth, and that you are hated precisely because of this. In other words, I accept their conclusion and say, “Yes, you are right, the problem is with us, we are to blame.”
Question: So we cannot run away from this?
Answer: No, no. However, killing us will also not make things easier on the world; it is better if we listen and reflect on how we can really use this eternal truth.
Question: There is no proof of what you are saying
Answer: If we, Israel, do what we must, there will be proof.
Question: But in the meantime, for many people, these are just words.
Answer: Of course, but on the other hand, they can say, “Oh, so this is why we hate them, that means we are right to hate them.”
Question: But what if a person doesn’t hate Jews? Many people don’t hate Jews, and we are basically telling them, “You do hate Jews!” We make a lot of clips of this kind with you, and the responses are always along the same line: “Chosen? The chosen people? Who gave you the right? Why are you so sure of that?”
Answer: But they themselves are saying it, all of humanity! Humanity has a special attitude toward Jews, a special opinion, a special demand. This matter has been with us for thousands of years; it is time to stop covering it and pretend like it doesn’t exist.
Question: So what should a non-Jew do if he wants to hear what you are saying?
Answer: He should simply listen to what I am saying.
Question: Even if he is not Jewish?
Answer: It makes no difference whether he is Jewish or not.
Question: But you are saying that the Jews have to do something specific!
Answer: Right. the Jews must know what distinguishes them, and accordingly, reveal their uniqueness to the nations of the world. Then, together with the rest of the nations, they must take upon themselves the transformation of all of humanity, of nature, of everything that exists.
Question: Transformation from what and into what?
Answer: Transformation from humanity’s absolute egoism, as we see today, into its opposite, into connection.
Question: Is this the task of the Jews?
Answer: Precisely this is upon the Jews to do.
Question: What about the rest of the nations?
Answer: The rest of the nations of the world should listen to what the Jews are saying because perhaps they [Jews] have a point, perhaps this is what can save us.
Question: But very few Jews speak about connection and changing our nature; the majority of Jews say nothing of the kind.
Answer: The majority do not know about their responsibility or understand their task; they are like everyone else.
Question: Their task is to connect and present it to the world?
Answer: Yes.
Question: OK, we will keep discussing it, as always; perhaps they will listen, and perhaps not.
Answer: They will listen, for sure.
Question: What makes you so hopeful?
Answer: I hang my hope on the fact that the world will not change just like that. It will not transition into a new state instantaneously. But in the end, nature will force all the nations of the world, and primarily the Jews, to think about what it really means to correct the world, and what we should come to, and first of all the Jews.
Question: Clear, but it is not simple.
Answer: It is not simple, but we are running out of time.
—
*For more elaborate explanations on the role of the Jewish people in the world, look in my books, Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
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There is nothing to correct in each of us; the problem is not in each one individually. The main thing is to correct our connection so that all the minuses and pluses in us, all the bad and good qualities that are in each one, reach mutual completion between the friends. This is called mutual guarantee.
The mutual guarantee is required precisely in order to mutually compensate for all the bad and good qualities through our connection. It turns out that there are no righteous among us—we are all sinners. But if we properly connect all our polar qualities with each other, combine pluses and minuses, then the entire system will start working perfectly.
The main thing is to complete each other. We just need to start this work; even if we do not understand how to do it and only want it to happen, the Creator will complete it for us.
If I compensate for all shortcomings that I notice in a friend by seeing the Creator behind him, then I connect the whole system in a complete manner. Then this system becomes clear to me, the entire creation becomes clear to me: how it connects and functions and how one part affects the other from the beginning of creation to the very end. I understand everything that happens in the relationship between all its parts; that is, I acquire the wisdom of the world.
It is said about this that “The righteous sit and enjoy the radiance of the Shechina,” the way all negative and positive qualities are combined, all opposites complete each other, and there is nothing unnecessary, nothing bad left, and everything is united in complete harmony.
[302030]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/22, “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him”
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Until we clarify our desire to enjoy and do not reveal a whole system of connections and its constituent properties, it seems just a desire that does not represent anything special.
But when its depth begins to unfold, we see how complex this system is.
Thus in quantum physics, scientists penetrate deeper and deeper into matter, and each time reveal a whole world inside ever smaller elementary particles, which were previously considered indivisible.
In this way we penetrate deeper and deeper into our desire to enjoy. But what do we see in it? We see how the upper light, which created the desire to enjoy, influenced it, and created four stages of direct light in it. And through these four stages, since the light has entered into the desire to enjoy, it is building its own structure in it.
In the desire to enjoy itself there is nothing but desire. But the light creates differences in it according to the five stages of Aviut (thickness) of the desire (Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet), Sefirot, Olamot, Partzufim, and Kavim, in an infinite number of types of connections and forms, each of which has its own characteristic features, an infinite number of differences—and they all come from the light.
Therefore, the more we open our desire to enjoy, the more we reveal the light, the Creator, and His nature. But we reveal Him from matter, the desire to enjoy, and this is called “form clothed in matter.”
We reveal not the Creator himself, but the actions that He performed in matter, and from them we attain Him, as it is written: “From Your actions we shall know You.”
We get into the matter itself. The Creator put Himself into matter, and we reveal ourselves as being in the same matter, and there we meet the Creator. Therefore, Atzmuto remains unattainable.
[31501]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/11, The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “Yitro (Jethro)”
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Inner work begins with our desire to get out of ourselves, to connect. And the way out of the connection is measured by how much it contradicts our desire and what forces interfere with the connection and fight against it.
These resisting forces just serve as help against us because they show a person where one still needs to make efforts to correct oneself.
And so a person gradually moves on and on. He tries to connect with his neighbor and bestow, and every time he receives rejection and correction of the direction, difficulties, burdening of the heart, and awareness of his mistake. But repeating over and over again gradually accumulates “penny by penny into a large sum,” and one day comes the “reckoning”; that is, he really reveals the power of bestowal, the power of faith.
And the main thing here is not to despair! After all, we start this path completely egoistically (Lo Lishma) and think only about how we can win big. We do not associate this with other people in any way and do not feel who this “neighbor” is.
These are still similar actions like a newborn baby who does not understand what he is doing at all and does not feel what is being done to him. But over time, he begins to feel a little, to hear, to see something, to react somehow, and so he grows! In the same way, we grow in spirituality! Only we are obliged to make efforts at every moment of our life, just like a child who is naturally pushed to grow by nature.
In fact, a person is not required to do more than what he is able to give. The main thing is to try! The main thing is to want bestowal, at least in some measure. And it is clear that this desire is not for real bestowal, but it doesn’t matter! The main thing is to want, and from these efforts a genuine desire will be born. Like a child who wants to be an adult, and thanks to his efforts to become big, to understand, to feel, and to do something he grows.
[55580]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/08/14, The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Hukat (The Statute), “Moses, Aaron, and Miriam”
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The melodies of Baal HaSulam are filled with spiritual meaning. It does not matter in what style they are written because he has put spiritual content into them. If it were not Baal HaSulam, then the same notes would no longer be perceived in such a way. There is nothing in the notes themselves and in their combination but just what he has put into them.
I think it is impossible to convey this to listeners.
Question: You explained that there is music that is the ultra-left line, and there is music that is the right line, and Baal HaSulam somehow combines all this, right?
Answer: I repeat once again, it is very difficult to convey this to a person, it is almost impossible. This is about inner feelings. A person who is in spirituality feels that there are special forces in this music, which the author has specially put into it.
Question: Musicians who play the melodies of Baal HaSulam say that this is music that conveys spirituality. To what extent does their performance pass spiritual information?
Answer: I do not think their performance passes anything. I believe that this melody should be just simple, not pretentious, although any melody should change its format over the course of generations because the souls are already different. But all the same, we need to play simply, clearly, and preferably as close as possible to the way it was intended by the author.
When the music of Baal HaSulam is performed in a rap style, I do not feel it. I hear that this is Baal HaSulam, but of course, there is no depth in it.
I am glad that his melodies are changed with love. They want to make them closer to the modern public; they want to attract the public to him by this. I understand these efforts. They are nice, good efforts. But for me personally, they… Not because I am an old aksakal [white beard, elderly], but still Baal HaSulam thought at a different pace, in a different clavier.
Question: Can a melody come from your students that will carry an inner experience?
Answer: Where from? Only if these students are in spiritual attainment, i.e., connected with each other so that the Creator is revealed between them, and they sing about that.
Question: Does it mean that everything that comes from people who are not yet in spiritual attainment is purely egoistic?
Answer: Of course! People perceive everything out of egoism until they go inside, into the spiritual perception. After all, everything begins from outside the spiritual world.
I do not think the melodies of Baal HaSulam can touch strangers. They do not tell them anything. This is the law of nature in which everything is measured by the extent of similarity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Melodies of Spiritual Comprehension” 3/4/13
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Comment: I read an article in which our current period is called “interesting for a historian and sad for contemporary man.”
My Response: It’s interesting because everything is developing very rapidly. “Sad for contemporary man” depends on for whom.
Question: It says that in addition to all the troubles, wars, and natural disasters, long-term friendship is collapsing, a brother stops calling his sister, children stop calling their parents, parents curse children.
Eighty years ago, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a former member of the resistance executed by the Nazis, wrote from prison and quoted the lyrics from a song by Hugo Wolf, “Over night, over night, joy and sorrow come, and sooner than you thought, they both leave you, and go to tell the Lord how you have borne them.”
How should we accept joy and sadness today? And maybe further about how should we accept sadness?
Answer: ”Blessed is he who has visited this world in its fateful moments.” But we live in a very intense era.
Comment: Yes, we don’t stop at any news. It’s different the next day.
My Response: I’m following it more or less. I am interested in how external actions affect people’s internal states, and how people change from this.
Comment: How it affects us is more or less visible. A dead end like this is approaching for people.
My Response: People can’t figure it out. They can’t in any way. There are very few true thoughts. They can’t put this together.
Comment: But all the same, humanity is sad mainly from everything that is to come, from hunger…
My Response: If there used to be some banner, slogan, future, or hope waving over everyone, today there is no hope for the future. Today the hope is only to live a good day, or at least if not very well, not very bad either.
Comment: Preferably with no scary news.
My Response: Yes. And to continue existing this way.
Question: How does a person accept this sadness that you are talking about? This pastor here said that all this goes to God and He looks at how you accepted it, so to say.
Answer: I would not say that all this goes to God. I would say that all this comes from God. Are we the builders of our spiritual future?
Comment: No, the Creator is building it.
My Response: Of course!
Question: So how do you accept sadness?
Answer: I think the whole problem is that we do not know the purpose of our creation; we do not imagine it in an explicit, clear form, but rather as in an unfocused lens, we see everything in such a fog, and it depresses us.
That’s what sadness is. After all, we don’t know how, or what, or for what, or in the name of what, which is the most important thing. For what purpose do some of the smallest events in our lives happen?
Question: And what if we knew in the name of what this is happening?
Answer: If we knew for what sake, the world would be different. We would immediately add more light and color to it inside ourselves.
Question: What is all this about? The biggest and smallest sorrows, what are they for? To add some light, maybe. Will it maybe work out somehow?
Answer: We can’t go into a sharper color state from this grayish and kind of blunt state. We cannot move from one of these states to another more elevated state if we do not reveal in ourselves all these colors and all these right attitudes to ourselves, to others, to the world, and to the Creator, who generally supplies us with all this.
The most important thing is, of course, to display the right position. Or what’s it called in the movies? To build a mise en scene. To see all this correctly, so that everything complements everything else and it becomes clear how it should exist.
Question: But still, what makes this black-and-white movie colored?
Answer: Only the attitude of a person.
Question: And what should blossom in me? What should light up suddenly?
Answer: When I realize that any events that surround me are necessary; they are mutually dependent. And if I relate them to the purpose of creation, then I will be able to focus them and assemble this whole picture so that it becomes one. What am I missing? It’s like in a kaleidoscope when the mosaic is assembled into the right picture.
Comment: In the meantime, I see fragmentarily, everything separately.
My Response: You can’t understand anything. You don’t understand anything, and therefore this is the main thing: that we don’t see the point in anything. When it all comes together, it makes sense. This is the most important thing. The meaning is always good.
Question: Why should all these fragments, all these broken pieces of glass, come together? In what picture? What’s all this about?
Answer: For me to rush to myself, to reveal the “I” itself.
Question: And what is it like?
Answer: It strives to direct everything that is revealed to me toward unity and connection so that I can form the image of the Creator out of everything.
[301840]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/2/22
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Question: How can I hate bad qualities that are outside of me? How can I hate them inside myself?
Answer: It is done gradually. It is very difficult. It takes years because we are going through the most difficult period of internal formation. After all, the universe existed for billions of years before the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels were formed.
And now we, people, are starting to develop. And look how fast we are developing compared to previous cosmic and geological periods. This is an enormous difference! One year today is like a hundred million years for the past levels or even more.
We are now developing at the inanimate level in the same way as the universe was developing. This is the bottom level of a pyramid, but it is the widest and thickest, and we do not see results while we are developing in it.
Nebulae, planets, the Sun, and galaxies collide. Everything swirls, flips, forms, explodes, disintegrates, and connects again. We do not see any of this yet because everything is happening in a kind of incomprehensible mass and, as it seems to us, it is an absolute mess.
In the end, everything gradually gathers together into the next level where the earth appears and living conditions emerge. So, we are now in the formation phase of all these conditions. We are already on Earth where conditions are being created for our spiritual life. The spiritual Earth kind of already exists, only the conditions of life have not yet been determined.
An international group where people who need to find the meaning of life gather together has already been created. That is, the support is already there, but it has not yet been shaped by us. We must take a more active part in this. Then it will turn out that vegetation will begin to grow from the ground, it will rise to the sun, to the sky. These should be our movements. This is what we do not have yet.
The transition from a lifeless state to the feeling of life and light is the most delicate, most subtle, and most dramatic period because inanimate matter must gradually come to life, turn into vegetative, animate—into a living one.
The force of life will appear in it because it consists of two qualities: bestowal and reception. What happens between them is the flow of energy and matter, the connection between the quality of bestowal—the Creator—and the quality of reception—creation—and in these mutual communications the middle, next state called man, Adam, will appear.
Question: So how can we hate external qualities inside ourselves?
Answer: The answer is simple: “You have to want to.” This is possible only through the friends. But we are still running away from this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Can I Hate My Bad Qualities?” 3/9/13
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What should I be grateful for?“
In the morning, we should be grateful for waking up, that there is light, air and an entire day ahead of us.
In the afternoon, we should be grateful for having been through half the day already, and that soon we will finish the day, go home to rest, and have dinner with our families.
Before going to sleep, we should be grateful for soon being able to once again get up, and that tomorrow will be a good day.
It might seem that being grateful all the time is like shutting our eyes to the evil and bad that abound in the world, but what do we get as a result of seeing evil and bad phenomena all the time? We do not need to invest in looking for negative aspects of life, as they appear involuntarily. However, we should invest in opening our eyes from such a state and seeing that there are people who try to see the good in everything. The more we invest in trying to see the positive aspects of life, then the more we will see positive phenomena actually enter our lives.
Based on the video “The Power of Gratitude” 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] |
Lesson on the Topic “Living In a World of Intentions”
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From the Mouth of a Sage”
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Selected Highlights
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
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