Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/2/23

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download:MP3 Audio

“US Lawmakers Highlight Discord between America and Israel” (Times of Israel)

Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “US Lawmakers Highlight Discord between America and Israel

Several events that have taken place over the past week highlight where the United States and Israel do not see eye to eye. One such event is the White House’s first-ever national strategy to combat antisemitism. To Israel’s surprise, the Biden administration avoided a clear endorsement of the mainstream, widely accepted definition of antisemitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), after progressive entities (including several Jewish organizations) argued that the IHRA definition does not allow for what they describe as “legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies.” Progressive groups also urged the Biden administration to leave out a definition of antisemitism entirely or consider alternative definitions.

Moreover, among the creators of the document, titled “The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism,” the White House included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a partner in building “cross-community solidarity” to combat antisemitism. This is disconcerting since the FBI has concluded long ago that leaders of CAIR are linked to the designated anti-Israel terrorist organization Hamas.

Another issue that has been on the table between Washington and Jerusalem for quite some time is the inclusion of Israel in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The program enables most citizens or nationals of participating countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. Recently, 16 senators, led by Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas urging the Administration not to include Israel in the VMP until Israel meets certain conditions of reciprocity that they believe are necessary for inclusion in the program.

The letter completely ignores Israel’s complex security issues with the Palestinians and demands that all American citizens of Palestinian origin will be given a free pass into Israel and will be free to travel within Israel with no questions asked. Even though one of the initiators of the letter, Brian Schatz, and one of the signatories, Bernie Sanders, are Jewish, they show no sympathy for Israel’s position. On the contrary, they are leading the demand for Israel to act against its own security interests.

I am bringing up these two issues not in order to criticize the US for its policy or to rebuke this or that senator for advocating an anti-Israel policy. I am doing this in order to stress the obvious truth that US-Israel interests are becoming increasingly discordant, and that Israel should not expect the US to take Israel’s best interest into consideration.

Also, the fact that one of the initiators of the VMP letter is Jewish, and that one of the signatories is a known Israel-basher Jewish senator, proves that a significant portion of American Jewry has no regard for Israel’s security. The conclusion Israel must therefore draw is that it can no longer rely on American Jewry to support it and work in its favor in the US government. The alliance that Israel has had with the US for decades is clearly weakening, including with American Jewry, and I am not sure how long it will last.

It is time for us, Israelis, to stand up for ourselves. It may be painful, but we must realize that US interests are often different from ours, and often contradictory; we cannot rely on them, and we should not expect America to cater to Israel’s needs. We need to do this for ourselves, and we could not begin too soon.
[313366]

The Growth of Desires

423.03Question: The world’s population is eight billion now. If previously a person met several hundred people during his life, today it is tens and hundreds of thousands. Does it have something to do with the growth of our desires?

Answer: Of course. The fact that today we meet a lot of people in our lives suggests that our desires have become large and complex. They are differentiated among themselves, added, subtracted, multiplied, and so on.

That is why the corporeal world in our imagination has become so complicated.
[313091]
From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 5/14/23

Related Material:
Thoughts And Desires
Growing Inward And Upward
The Bottomless Pit Of Desires

Mediums for Recording Information

526Question: Does it matter which medium a book is written: paper or electronic media?

Answer: No. This is not critical. There are different mediums for different times. An ebook acts in the same way as a regular book.

Question: Why were books previously made on papyrus or animal skins?

Answer: What else could they have been made on? At first, pieces of wood were used, also sand or fired clay tablets were used for writing. They did what they could.

It was necessary to have a material that could be made into some form so that it would be recorded and preserved as a transmitter of information.

Therefore, the carriers were earth, stones, wood, and plant leaves. Then they started making papyrus and turning natural materials into something flatter and more suitable. At first, they wrote on special clay tablets and then animal skins.

People saw that the skin of animals consisted of several layers, and if it was cut lengthwise in thickness, it became thinner. They divided it into two parts and wrote on the inner elastic part since the ink on it did not corrode, did not spread out, and remained for a long time.
[312795]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is a Book” 4/4/11

Related Material:
Printed Text, Audio, Or Video Media?
The Book Is A Guide
Working With Kabbalistic Texts

Based on the Principles of the Universe

963.5Question: Why do you introduce the concept of the principles of the universe? After all, this has never been shared anywhere before.

Answer: The Kabbalists of the past have a description of the principles of the universe, but only in a free presentation as if you were describing our world in a novel as great writers did. Kabbalists were practically philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, and educators, but they presented everything in an artistic form and not in the form of a methodology.

Therefore, in Baal HaSulam’s articles and letters, the principles of the universe are described in an artistic style. We take them and format them in a more concrete form so that it is more clear to a person what is happening to him and around him.

As a rule, these principles are the preface to our articles and outline the method of correction that we are obliged to offer to the world.

In other words, based on the principles of the universe, we describe what the past, present, and future are, and how from this moment onward, we need to behave in order to move forward in a mandatory movement regardless of us.
[312764]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Principles of the Universe” 3/27/11

Related Material:
The Only Principle Of Creation
We Are In the Center of All the Worlds
Perceiving The Hidden Realm Of The Universe

The Magic of the Lesson

255Question: How can you talk for three hours during the lesson? Where do you get this resource from, and where does this force within you come from?

Answer: I am experiencing it all inside. I am constantly getting new sensations and new tastes. For example, you are sitting at the table, your appetite is constantly aroused, and you are eating food according to this appetite.

You get saturated and again feel the desire, then saturation and again desire, and so on without end. If it were not for our corporeal organs, it would be endless.

Even the corporeal organs already work differently. During these three hours, I have no other desire. The body works autonomously.

Question: Do you not associate yourself with the body at all during the lesson?

Answer: During the lesson, I practically do not feel my body.
[312992]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Magic of the Kabbalah Lesson” 4/25/11

Related Material:
On A Spiritual Salary
I’d Rather Be a Janitor…
Abundance Is Limitless Bestowal

Who Can Be the Recipient of Spiritual Energy?

281.02Question: What does the field of your spiritual energy do to a person if he suddenly finds himself in it?

Answer: Nothing. Everyone has their own freewill. Those who are physically next to me can perceive or not perceive, resist, and react in any way they wish.

My spiritual field does not exist physically around me, but it exists in all spaces, and feeling it depends only on the recipient. Whoever reveals it and absorbs it into himself is the recipient of it.

I can live my whole life next to a person who will not receive anything from me in the end because he did not tune in to receive from me, and I did not tune in to give to him. There must be contact.
[312987]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Energy” 4/21/11

Related Material:
A Conduit of Spiritual Energy
What Is The Source Of The Energy?
Thought as Fuel for a Power Plant

Direct Dependency

944Question: In addition to the role of a teacher, do you have your own personal spiritual development and certain attainment?

Answer: Yes because now is a period of development of all souls when they should begin to rise.

I am a teacher who, while teaching people, at the same time is very dependent upon them. Therefore, if my students succeed, I have the opportunity to rise, and if not, then I am not allowed to rise higher than I would like.

In principle, it will be so in all future generations because the time of single Kabbalists who soared by themselves to the heights of attainment of the upper world, the Creator, has ended.

I think that starting from this period, from our generation onward, all Kabbalists will work only for the dissemination of Kabbalah and the correction of the world. They will not be able to rise higher than their students and the whole of humanity with whom they must be in contact to teach, help, and pull along.

That is why I feel how dependent I am on my students.
[312540]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Role of the Kabbalist” 3/6/11

Related Material:
Rigid Connection to the World
Thanks to the Group
How Can You Feel the Power of the Group?

A Book Is a System for Connecting to the Common Soul

209A book is a system for connecting a private soul to the common soul. That is, to what only exists in nature—to the entire system of the universe, to the entire common creation.

The shattering of the common creation happened on purpose so that we disconnect from it and begin to connect on our own, because in the process of connecting, we begin to adapt ourselves to this common system, the Creator, to correct, and to demand changes.

By going through correction upon ourselves, we begin to understand what kind of system we once existed in, and then we were specifically disconnected from it and thrown out so that by gradually adapting to it, we would not only attain it, but also begin to manage it.

A book is a system of communication that achieves a gradual equilibrium, since communication is manifested in balancing properties. Just as in our world two interlocutors tune in to each other like a transmitter and receiver where there must be identical devices on both sides so that both understand each other, it is the same here: my soul must understand the system of the common soul.

If there are common properties between them, then to that extent I am connected with the common soul, the common creation.
[312701]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Book?” 3/13/11

Related Material:
The Main Rule For Reading Kabbalistic Books
What Are Kabbalah Books About?
How Should One Read Books Of Kabbalah?

“What came first: science or Kabbalah?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What came first: science or Kabbalah?

Science came from Kabbalah, which was discovered by Adam over 5,700 years ago. After Adam, Kabbalists appeared 20 generations before Abraham, i.e., prior to the time of ancient Babylon, and then others appeared after Abraham.

Kabbalah gave us a system. Philosophy emerged from Kabbalah. There are several sources, documents and writings of ancient philosophers as well as those of philosophers and scientists of the Middle Ages, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and continuing with Newton, Reuchlin, Leibniz and others, who described how early philosophers studied with Kabbalists, from whom they derived their knowledge. They developed that knowledge into philosophies, and those philosophies became the foundations of the sciences.

In those times, we aspired to learn about the general nature that was outside of our perception. In other words, we had a closer connection to nature and were interested in learning about the meaning of our lives.

Today, it might sound unreal that we once inquired into the meaning of our lives, but it is due to our present-day distance from nature, where we fail to perceive what it meant to be much closer to nature in those times. Afterward, humanity evolved in its egoistic desires, through desires for money, honor and control, and we developed a much more pragmatic and technological approach to science. Today, however, after eons of such development, we have reached a position akin to those past researchers of our world; we are returning to that same question about the meaning of our lives.

Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Science?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 6, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.