Comment: On October 19, 1914, the First Battle of Ypres began. The month-long battle marked the first of three destructive and brutal battles during the First World War on the Belgian Ypres Salient. More than 200,000 lives were lost on both sides. About a month later in the Flanders’ trenches what is known as the Christmas Truce took place throughout two-thirds of the 4 mile-line.

“The first signs that something strange was happening occurred on Christmas Eve. At 8:30 p.m. an officer of the Royal Irish Rifles reported to headquarters: ‘Germans have illuminated their trenches, are singing songs and wishing us a Happy Xmas. Compliments are being exchanged but am nevertheless taking all military precautions.’ Further along the line, the two sides serenaded each other with carols—the German ‘Silent Night’ being met with a British chorus of ‘The First Noel’—and scouts met, cautiously, in no man’s land, the shell-blasted waste between the trenches. The war diary of the Scots Guards records that a certain Private Murker ‘met a German Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars, and a message was sent back saying that if we didn’t fire at them, they would not fire at us.’

“The same basic understanding seems to have sprung up spontaneously at other spots. For another British soldier, Private Frederick Heath, the truce began late that same night when “all down our line of trenches there came to our ears a greeting unique in war: ‘English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas!’” Then–as Heath wrote in a letter home–the voices added:

‘Come out, English soldier; come out here to us.’ For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other a Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other’s throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our hands ready on our rifles. Blood and peace, enmity and fraternity—war’s most amazing paradox. The night wore on to dawn—a night made easier by songs from the German trenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our broad lines laughter and Christmas carols. Not a shot was fired.

(Smithsonian Magazine, December 23, 2011, “The Story of the WWI Christmas Truce”)

In 2014, a monument was erected there—a soccer ball. A soccer game was played in no man’s land between the Allied and German trenches.

Four months later in the same area, the Germans launched the Second Battle of Ypres and introduced a poison gas offensive.

Yet, at that moment on Christmas, they could have stopped the war if the entire front line had been aware—if everyone had found out and gone to the same meeting in the same way. The question is very timely and pressing. Was it really possible to stop the war from below?

My Response: If the soldiers wanted to, of course they could have. What would those generals do?

Comment: It is amazing. Back then, they were really killing: with bayonets, they fought hand-to-hand. It means that you see the blood. You do not just shoot guns and missiles. You see them and hate him, and yet you agree to fraternize. It means that it is possible!

My Response: That is certain! Undoubtedly, it is possible to turn over everything, even the greatest hatred in one second.

Question: Must there be some event that unites everyone? What should happen?

Answer: Nothing should happen. It is like it happens when you keep fighting with someone, and suddenly—voila!—the hatred disappears, the reason disappears, and in general, everything disappears.

Question: Where does this come from? What kind of miracle is this?

Answer: It is simply that we are controlled in this way.

Neither love nor hate make any sense. Love as well. There is no difference between them!

Question: Do you mean that there is the same outburst of emotions? Plus or minus?

Answer: Of course. Suddenly, you do not know what to do, why you loved him, why you did not love him, and now there is nothing! There is nothing left.

Question: Definitely nothing left. All divorcing couples say to each other: “Why did I love you?” Yet, they were so much in love!

But, anyway, help us sort this out. What kind of work is this—from above?

Answer: We can sort this out only by faith above reason. When we connect with each other not according to our feelings, but according to our ideas. That is all.

There is only one idea—rapprochement, cohesion, connection, and unification up to absolute non-separation, and I would even say adhesion.

Question: Is this the state we should be in? What is the root of this?

Answer: The root of it is the upper root. The fact that we come from the same upper root, and therefore, we must reach this state.

Question: Is the basis of all humanity this single root?

Answer: Only the Creator. Since He is One, Unique, and Unified, He forces us to come to Him. By hook or by crook. Either by suffering or by a slight effort.

Question: How do we come to this root?

Answer: We must be convinced that everything else is against unity, the opposite of it, that is, absolute stupidity, and that we cannot come to anything good if we are the opposite of the Creator.

Question: What about those random upsurges of reason?

Answer: They have happened at war, in many places. But what can you do? That is the way people are.

Question: What do they indicate to us, these upsurges of reason?

Answer: I would say that here, of course, it would have been necessary to play differently. But the high military command and others had to do it.

Question: So, did they have to continue this flash mob?

Answer: To join it and end the war.

Comment: But this is against any military command.

My Response: Naturally!

Comment: That is, one way or another, the war ends from above. I mean, not from Above, but from above.

My Response: The war, actually, ends from Above.

Question: How can we beg to end the war from Above?

Answer: By realizing that we understand why we needed it. We recognize it, and that is enough.

Question: But what kind of recognition is it?

Answer: That the suffering we have been through is enough for us for today, and we promise to be good.

Of course, this will not be for long. Then it will happen again.

Question: Is this a peace treaty with the Creator or a peace treaty with each other?

Answer: It is a peace treaty between us.

Question: Is this the only thing that exists?

Answer: I think we are moving toward this somehow.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/15/22

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Question: What does the condition of better off dead than such a life mean?

Answer: This state manifests itself at every level. First, when a person is desperate. Secondly, when he feels himself in such a deep egoism that he is ready to do anything just to not stay in it, and so on.

A person has such moments of despair when he breaks through. This is usually directed against his egoism, but sometimes also against the Creator. Everything happens. So what? We have nothing to hide!

The Creator for us is the upper force, the highest quality of nature. I want to acquire it so that the Creator is in me. This is not something that has a volume, some parameters, some view. This is a quality, a category. Kabbalah has a very simple attitude toward this—it is all for materialism.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Better Death than this Kind of Life” 1/28/12

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Question: Do you remember your purely egoistic perception of the world when you were not yet in spiritual attainment? And then, when you already began to perceive everything on a different level, did you erase some facet, some illusion that seemed to you before?

Answer: Nothing has been erased. I just perceive everything more clearly, understandably, and with greater agreement and tolerance, not because I am getting older, but because I see the need for all manifestations of what is in a person.

I see that the most terrible, the most disgusting, and everything that no one can justify, comes from the same source, the upper force, and, unfortunately, sometimes manifests itself in such terrible forms.

And, of course, I treat people as material that needs to be corrected, to convey the truth to them, and to help them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman – Before and After Attainment” 1/28/12

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In the News (Science Daily): “An area of the brain specifically involved in putting in effort to help others out has been pinpointed by scientists at the University of Birmingham and University of Oxford.

“The research, published in Current Biology, shows that effortful altruistic behaviour -choices people make that help others — takes place in a different part of the brain from that used to make physically demanding choices that help oneself. …

“The area identified, called the anterior cingulate cortex gyrus (ACCg), is located towards the front of the brain. It is known to play a role in social behaviour, but has not previously been linked to putting in effort to help others. Interestingly, the researchers found that the ACCg is not activated when individuals make effortful decisions that only benefit themselves.”

Question: You always say that altruism is a consequence of correcting egoism, that we come to altruism, and it is quite a difficult job. Yet, it turns out that we can just make an altruist out of a person by surgery.

How do you feel about this? We can just activate this part of the brain and that is it, and we will live bestowing and loving!

Answer: But why live bestowing and loving? That is, the purpose of all this, what is it for?

Comment: To make me feel good about it.

My Response: Then we do not need any altruism or something else. Then you just need to inject a person with something cheering and that is it

Question: So, is this not a discovery for you?

Answer: No. There is no correction of the world and of a person in this.

Comment: Even if in this way we can turn criminals, for example, into kind, warm people?

My Response: This is not about people and not about every person. The fact is that there is the upper force of nature with which we must connect, come closer to in qualities, and participate with in the correction of all of nature.

Question: Is this such a program?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: Can it not be shortened by any operations or anything at all? Humanity is coming up with different pills, looking for any opportunities to shorten this path.

My Response: Where have you seen at least one person who would change or correct himself with a pill?

Comment: No one has corrected himself. You insist on this word all the time that a person should “correct” himself. Few people want to be corrected in our world. This word, on the contrary, scares people away.

I do not want to correct myself. I want someone to do good things for me, and I want to feel good so that nothing hurts me, so that I get up in the morning and sing along with the birds and go for a walk.

My Response: To do this, you need to be a little idiot and that is it.

Question: Is this not a person’s destiny to be a little idiot? 🙂

Answer: No, we are developing, and we need more and more. Therefore, I do not know whether there is any good ahead of us.

Question: If I come to such a happy, childish state, do you think that it will change sooner or later anyway, and I will get out of it?

Answer: This is an idiotic state.

Question: Will I be taken out of this idiotic state one way or another? Will I not be able to live like this?

Answer: Nature will throw you out.

Comment: That is why we are dealing with drug addicts who, in general, probably feel good. They are sitting disconnected, and we want to take them out of this state all the time.

My Response: Because their cheerful, disconnected state is a lie. Therefore, the world does not agree with this.

Question: Even if they do not harm anyone, is it still a lie?

Answer: Of course! The cheapest thing is to distribute drugs and calm humanity.

Question: Is the path of correction always so hard that everyone shudders from this word? Or not? Can I somehow accept it and say: “Okay, I am walking it”?

Answer: I think that the path of correction is, in fact, not really difficult. But it depends on dissemination, advertising, persuasion, and explanation. This is the problem of our wisdom.

The wisdom itself is not easy. A person begins to study it and does not understand what it is talking about. It takes several years for him to start hearing and to adjust himself at least a little.

Question: Why did Kabbalists make it so difficult?

Answer: Kabbalists did  not do anything. They take nature and try to twist it in any way, just so that it gets closer to a person. Nature is the opposite of a person. Therefore, there is nothing we can do with it.

It must be turned and twisted somehow so that a person begins to see it from several sides, so that he rises above his egoism, so that he begins to see the world in a different light, in a different guise.

This is the task of the wisdom of Kabbalah—to bring it closer to a person, to tell a person that there is an opposite nature.

Question: From hatred to love?

Answer: Love, yes.

Question: What if we repeat constantly that there is such a thing as “love”? Not only can you fight, kill, hate, and live with your egoism, but you can also love, you can learn to bestow?

Answer: No, we do not know what it is yet. Love is a pure quality of the Creator. We do not know what it is. With us, it all takes on some ugly forms.

Comment: More like animals.

My Response: Yes. And all this is wrong.

Question: Does it mean that in order to raise a person to the level of this upper love, upper nature, we need to turn him over?

Answer: To turn him over. That is, to tear him away from his egoism. And to attract to him the quality of love that will remain in him after this separation.

Question: What will remain?

Answer: A small dot. But only it can be adhered to the quality of love. It will develop and grow together with it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/27/22

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Question: Often before big events or congresses there are states when people start to distance themselves somehow, think that they are unimportant, and do not take part in the events. Do they lose something by not overcoming those states?

Answer: Of course, undoubtedly! The main problem is in the preparation of desire, suffering, and awe. Will the connection succeed at the next level? After all, if it doesn’t work out, it will be a huge blow, a failure, which then, of course, through disappointments and various revelations of problems will turn into a correction.

But we need to act differently. We need to go forward with our own pressure, and push our way into the higher world.

Question: What should I do? The main thing for a person is just to participate?

Answer: No, you have to be in this body and soul and prepare yourself with great passion, with great trepidation, and with horror that it may not work out because such an incredible opportunity comes once in a lifetime.

Question: But on whom does the development of this desire depend?

Answer: From all together on the terms of mutual guarantee.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Arava or How to Overcome Yourself?”1/21/12

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What must America do to fix its trust crisis?“

Indeed, we are living in times of a social trust crisis, and it could lead to worse states where our connections would freeze and we would be unable to move toward each other. Then, from a state where society lives in an iceberg of sorts, we will see that we gain nothing beneficial from our mutual distrust, and we will then start developing a desire for a newfound warmth and love.

We will then need a connection enriching teaching that will guide us on how to come closer to each other, and how to warm our relations with love.

On one hand, we will hold ourselves in mutual distrust and feel ourselves frozen in such a state, and on the other hand, we see how we have no choice but to learn how nature leads us to a helpless state as part of our evolutionary development.

Our increasing distrust is due to our constantly growing ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—that has reached overblown proportions in our era. It makes our relationships colder and colder until we eventually find ourselves completely frozen, unable to make any movements toward each other. At such a point, we need to start artificially activating warm relationships of positive connection.

How?

We will need to start such a process in small groups of people who agree to the need for a transformation from negative to positive human relations, and who will be willing to act out relations of mutual consideration and respect above their innate mutual distrust.

By engaging in this process of connection-enriching learning and exercising of positive connections in small groups, we will start seeing that nature demands of us to live as one body with mutual responsibility among its parts, like how cells and organs live and function together harmoniously for the sake of an organism’s health and well-being.

How do a variety of diverse and even opposing parts exist in a harmonious connection? It is because there is a natural system of life that ties them together.

We thus have to draw the positive force dwelling in nature—a force of bestowal, love and connection—to connect us similarly to how the many cells and organs of a human body interconnect.

Our next state of evolution is to realize our tight interconnectedness and interdependence in a positive manner: that we become aware of the need to mutually consider each other, that living in mutual distrust leads to nothing positive, and that we need to nourish each other with care and respect.

When we reach such a realization, then we will need to also develop a demand for the positive force dwelling in nature to vitalize our interdependence. It is an omnipresent force, but it is dormant and concealed from our egoistic perception; it is actually what is frozen while we let our inborn egoistic approach determine our lives.

When we reach a demand for the positive force of nature to enter our connections, feeling how our very survival depends on it, then we can then take that force “out of the freezer,” so to speak, and let it guide us first to positively connect above our mutual distrust, and then continue strengthening that connection until we feel ourselves as living in a single body.

Based on the video “Social Trust Crisis: Where it Leads Us and How to Fix It” 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: “Headed for Exile?”

It has been more than two months since the general election in Israel took place. Although the results showed a clear winner, and no one disputes the integrity of the election process, the tensions in Israeli society seem to be growing all the time. There is talk of civil disobedience, apprehension of politicians who incite against the government, and repetitive mentioning of the words “civil war.” A well-known journalist even said that nothing will change until a lot of metaphoric, and even real blood is spilt.

As has happened many times before, the people of Israel’s worst, if not only enemy is internal division, internal hatred. No ruler has ever vanquished us unless we first annihilated one another. We are at a crossroads once again, and once again, we seem to be choosing the path of pain.

The fact that we all know our history and what has been our bane throughout the ages, makes no difference. No argument or reasoning will convince us to make concessions, or even negotiate with our dissenters. Our attitude has always been totalitarian: Either our rivals accept that we are right and relinquish all their claims, or we fight them to the death.

Politicians who expressed one opinion only a few years ago, now express the complete opposite opinion only because their position has changed from being in the government to being in the opposition, or the other way around. Every issue—from Israel’s judicial system through its economy to its security and defense—is subject to political position. Considerations of the best interest of the country simply do not exist anymore. Even if the country falls to pieces, “leaders” will not give up until they are king of the hill, even if the hill is a heap of smoldering ashes.

When the only considerations are what serves my ego, of course it is impossible to let anyone rule but me. If I am not the prime minister, I will interrupt and interfere in any way I can. This is the prevailing mindset.

I remember that years ago, I was slightly involved in the Israeli political system, but for years now I have refrained from any involvement. The only result of political meddling is that it puts the country at risk, and I want no part in it.

Our enemies rejoice at the sight of our internal hatred. Like the Romans did two thousand years ago, they will use our inner fragmentation and drive us out of here. As has happened so many times before, we will, God forbid, be exiled.

Throughout our history, our people have been exiled, slaughtered, burned, and tortured to death. All these torments came to us for our inner hatred. Nevertheless, we have refused to accept that our only road to happiness and peace is the road of loving one another.

Even though our nation conceived the ideas of love of others, charity, and mutual responsibility, we have always shunned these notions. Instead, we agreed to love only those who thought like we did and lived like we did. We have set an example of both mercy and cruelty, but in our annals, the latter has always ultimately won.

King Solomon said, “Hate stirs up strife, and love will cover all crimes” (Prov. 10:12). We are great at carrying out the first part of the verse, but we are awful at following its latter part.

We cannot hope to agree with one another; this will never happen. Our only hope is to learn that despite our disagreements, we are one nation. Unless we understand that just as brothers do not murder one another simply because they disagree, neither must we. Otherwise, we are headed for death and exile.
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Question: How can we not go crazy from the current news?

Answer: I personally listen to the news. However, it depends on which ones. In principle, they don’t drive me crazy. I understand that this is our world and today it still has to move along this trajectory.

But I hope that in the near future the world will sober up and begin to understand how to better to behave, what shape to take, and what kind of relationships to build.

I think that everything that is happening now will shake up the world and people will feel the need for mutual positive movements.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23

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The will to receive is set in the emanated being only through its awakening to receive of its own accord (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 6, Item 24).

Question: Is creation the emanated being that has its own personal will to receive?

Answer: Not only to receive, but even to become similar to the Creator. This is why, desire goes through four phases of development, and it is in the last phase that it develops a free personal desire to become similar to the Creator. Before that, it is not yet considered a creation because it goes through involuntary stages of development.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/1/23

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