Audio Version Of The Blog – 1/24/24
Posted on January 24th, 2024
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Michael Laitman on the Times of Israel: “Is Immigration Killing New York?”
Lately, there has been a lot of talk about an immigration crisis in New York. More and more migrants are making their homes on the streets of Manhattan, pitching tents and sleeping on the sidewalks in the cold winter months.
The mayor of New York has raised the idea of placing migrants on cruise ships. On the flip side, some are calling for closed borders, urging a return of migrants to their home countries. It is indeed a complicated situation.
Today, millions of people around the world are on the move, looking for a better life. But where they settle matters, and Siberia is not exactly topping their list. Manhattan definitely seems like a much brighter option.
On one hand, immigrants have built America into what it is today. But on the other hand, times have changed and now Americans feel like the landlords. They want their comfort and the idea of hosting everyone has lost its mass appeal.
The big question is whether it is right for a country to close its doors to illegal immigrants. I say yes. Every country has the right to decide who gets in and who does not, and it includes setting the rules.
But then comes a deeper inquiry. What about the sense of homeland? Is it right to feel that your home is exclusively yours? Well, not exactly. It depends on your values and feelings, but the idea of a shared planet for everyone is gaining ground.
I was once optimistic that people would come to the realization that nothing in this world is truly theirs. But nowadays, humanity acts like the world is its personal playground, tearing it up in the process.
The future? Ideally, humanity needs some serious re-education. We should view the entire planet as our shared home, working together to make it a good one for all.
Our world is undergoing changes today like no other time in history. The more globally interconnected and interdependent we become, the more we are being shown how we need to shift our perspective from “this is my place, my country” to “this is our common home, for everyone.” The time has come to break free from the mindset of organizing our lives for our own personal benefit to instead live in order to benefit others and the whole of humanity. If we succeed in making that shift on a mass scale, then we will bear witness to the birth of a brand new harmonious and peaceful world.
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Each degree in spirituality is a reality, and everyone sees the reality, just as all those who come to the city of London in England see what is in the city and what is said in the city (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 98 “Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost”).
Question: When we are united by some common desire, do we feel the light in it the same way?
Answer: No, everyone feels it individually.
Question: Then how can we have the same feeling if different people, different tens, connect?
Answer: Baal HaSulam gives an example that all visitors to London experience approximately the same impression.
Comment: But someone comes to London for shopping, someone to visit, someone to visit the royal palace.
My Response: It is exactly the same as you. The attainment of the spiritual degrees takes place in accordance with your needs.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/8/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost”
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“Let us make man,” who is destined to put doing before hearing (Rashbi, Zohar for All “The Flower Buds”).
All degrees of nature, all its forces, participate in coming to such a development when man emerges from nature. The inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human degrees manifest themselves sequentially until the appearance of man.
It is said: “We shall do it and we shall hear.” The fact is that in order for a person to attain spirituality, he must first perform an action, and then he will hear. Hearing is the quality of bestowal, Bina.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 1/7/24
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This is the meaning of “I am black, but beautiful,” because if you can accept the blackness, you will see that I am beautiful (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 127 “The Difference between Core, Self, and Added Abundance”).
Question: What does it mean to accept blackness?
Answer: Accepting blackness means not seeing any qualities of bestowal and love, but despite the fact that we find ourselves in black egoistic thoughts that pull us down, we must make efforts and climb the degrees of spiritual correction.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/9/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Difference between Core, Self, and Added Abundance”
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Question: What does it mean to be in the lesson?
Answer: It means to be present in the lessons and strive to unite everyone so that all the friends are connected to each other and through you to the Creator. And the correct global connection is when each of the ten fulfills this condition.
Question: How can we prepare for this?
Answer: There is no need to prepare; that is how you act when each of the ten wants all the friends to connect with the Creator through him.
Question: Can we help each other rise above the egoism that is unfolding between us?
Answer: Of course you can. You must help your friend by showing an example, hug him, cheer him up, keep him from falling, and be in constant connection with him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 1/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Torah Lishma”
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For many years I have reflected about life.
There is nothing under the moon I cannot understand.
I know that I do not know anything–
This is the last secret I have learned.
(Attributed to Omar Khayyam)
Question: Is the correct outcome of life that a person realizes that he knows nothing?
Answer: Yes, this is really so. He comes to the end of his life and realizes that he does not understand anything from it!
Comment: Although during his life it seemed to him that he was accumulating knowledge.
My Response: Yes, he was a great sage and philosopher.
Question: Yes, he had children, raised them, raised others, taught others. As a result, he comes to the conclusion that he knows nothing and has not attained anything?
Answer: No, that life is something that cannot be attained.
Question: “This is the last secret I have learned.”
That is, it turns out that throughout life this is a secret, a person does not understand this. Why is it revealed at the end of life? Why not tell him this so that he would be wiser in the middle of life or at the beginning?
Answer: He will not accept it.
Question: So, go through life like that and as a result find out that nothing has been achieved by me and I have done nothing. Is that right?
Answer: This is obviously true.
Question: I wonder, are we still shown this along the way? Are there any such signposts that tell us: “Understand that you will achieve nothing or that you are nothing”?
Answer: I think this will not calm a person down. That is, youth and strength take their toll. He searches all the time until already in adulthood, especially in old age, he understands that the main thing for him is to live today. Tomorrow will come, he will live it the same way.
Question: This is when he comes to wisdom, to old age. But during his life, he still has a lot ahead of him, and he still goes on and on, right?
Answer: Of course, there are all sorts of plans.
Question: Is it right to live like this? Or is it necessary to come to the point somewhere in the middle of life that, as you say, we start living day by day?
Answer: But it is difficult for a person to agree with this. It is against our nature. We want to go forward all the time and achieve something. But in fact, we are not achieving anything. We quietly live this life as biological beings and that is it, and then we pass away.
Comment: But we are still somehow enjoying the challenge that we have.
My Response: This is like kids in a sandbox.
Comment: Look at Elon Musk, for example. He is on everyone’s radar all the time. He is enjoying himself. Sometimes he launches something into space, then he wants to move everyone to Mars, then something else, then to implant microchips. He is full of energy and pleasure.
My Response: Such people are indeed full of pleasure and energy and try to make everyone follow them. But does it have a meaning? This is a question.
Question: Why does a person not want to come to the conclusion that “I am nothing”?
Answer: Because he says, “I am nothing,” and other possibilities are revealed behind this.
I am nothing, and then what? Am I then nothing in trying to do what: to get rich, to control? And then what? Here he has all sorts of dilemmas.
Question: Is that why he is afraid?
Answer: Yes. He also does not want to stop.
Question: Does he then stabilize his life by running, creating, and inventing?
Answer: Yes, there are many like this.
Question: But in fact, do you think that one way or another they are destined to come to such an end anyway?
Answer: Everyone knows the end.
Comment: Yes. “For dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).
My Response: Yes. But the fact is that it depends on what goals he sets for himself, and they give him life, and the strength to move, get up, wake up in the morning, and do something.
Question: Do you think this is a sandbox game?
Answer: Yes, it is a sandbox game.
Question: What wisdom should come to him then?
Answer: If this is balanced with his general theory of life, then it is probably a good thing. But if this is just to run from Earth to Mars and somewhere else and back, then of course there is no point in that.
Question: What if a person suddenly stops and asks a question: “What is after that, what is next?”
Answer: It can be very bad for this person. Then he loses his bearings in life. This is even worse!
Comment: This is called depression.
My Response: Yes. So it is better to let him play in the sandbox and not think about anything else.
Question: Is it better when the questions: “Why am I running? What do I live for?” do not pop up?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But you insist all the time and say that a person should still come up with the question “What am I living for?” People who have this question come to us to study. Does it mean that it is good?
Answer: If they come to study with us, then they go further in their development besides building all sorts of ships to Mars. But we still do not know the meaning of life.
Question: But if we want to attain it, is that a good thing?
Answer: I do not know that. Whoever wants to live for this will of course come to us. The rest will be satisfied with less.
Question: If there is this question we have come to it, there is no escape. We came to the question: “What is all this for? What am I running for? What is this life for? For what?”
If this question “What do I live for?” does not stop, but on the contrary gives a person life, can we say that it is good? Does it turn out that this is a different kind of person, a different character? That is, he is not satisfied.
Answer: Yes, it depends on the character of the person.
Question: How was it with you, may I ask?
Answer: I had this since I was a kid. Therefore, the sandbox game for me was something…
Question: But you had it, right?
Answer: Yes!
Comment: Indeed! You were a scientist, you wanted to be a scientist, and so on.
My Response: Yes.
Comment: Then something happened to you.
My Response: I realized that it was all pointless.
Question: Is it because you were stopped, you were not allowed to go where you wanted to go?
Answer: This as well, but still, the desire to attain is disappointing in itself. No matter how much you yearn to attain, you see that it all leads to infinity.
Question: Does it not give you additional desire to live? To infinity, after all, the infinite. endless knowledge, the infinity of everything.
Answer: No, even new knowledge, even if you reveal something new every day, you still need to continue tomorrow. I do not see any special, good impulses in this.
Question: Please tell me, we are getting a little closer to a dead end. How can a person live with this? With what you are saying, how can he live?
Answer: I do not know. I sometimes think of my history teacher from school. He was saying: “A person’s life consists of watching a movie, reading a good book so that it is somehow interesting. And that is life.”
Question: Is that all? No need to rush anywhere, just live like that?
Answer: Yes, he was already elderly.
Question: But you were eager, were you not?
Answer: I was eager. I was not particularly impressed by these words of his. But still, in some ways they remained in me.
Comment: You said that one of the happiest moments of your life was the moment you suddenly started to get answers to your questions. You suddenly realized that there is what you were looking for behind this.
My Response: Yes!
Question: Are you personally still in this state?
Answer: Maybe not as much as before, but I am moving forward, yes.
Question: So, after all, when you get answers to these eternal questions, is this life?
Answer: This is life. Because these answers are in turn new questions.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/13/23
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It is written about in the book, Tree of Life, by the Ari, “There is not a day that is like another, or a moment that is like another; there is not a person who is like another… Rather, each one must correct that which belongs to his part” (Rabash, Article 10, 1984 “What Is the Degree One Should Achieve in Order Not to Have to Reincarnate?”).
Question: Who determines the part I need to correct?
Answer: It was already determined before you were born, before you realized you existed. Therefore, you must attain and correct yourself as much as you can.
Question: Can we say this part is related to fate?
Answer: Of course, this is the fate of man. Fate is the part of the egoistic desires one must correct.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 1/2/24
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All of the souls extend from the soul of Adam HaRishon, for after he sinned in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, his soul divided into 600,000 souls (Rabash, Article 10, 1984 “What Is the Degree One Should Achieve in Order Not to Have to Reincarnate?”).
Adam HaRishon is a system of desires, which in the beginning were as one desire, and then shattered into 600,000 parts, then into many more parts, and more, so that in each of the created beings, there is some part of the common soul “Adam.”
Therefore, during our lives, and even during several life cycles, we need to try to change those egotistic desires that we reveal in ourselves into altruistic ones.
To do this, we must be in a group, among friends, learn correction from them, and they must learn from us, and through our efforts, we will help each other rise from egoism and obtain actions of bestowal and love.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 1/2/24
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Question: In the article “What Does the Rule, “Love Thy Friend as Thyself,” Give Us?,” Rabash explains that with the help of this rule, you can come to love for the Creator. Then why are there all the other actions and fulfillment of the commandments?
Answer: How else will we come to love for the Creator? We must move from love for the other to love for the Creator. We cannot develop this feeling in ourselves in any other way.
After you already have some direction of love for your friends for the Creator, the rest of the commandments will be fulfilled.
Question: If the main law of the Torah is “love your neighbor,” after implementing it can we fulfill all the other commandments? Or, on the contrary, do we complete all the commandments first and then come to love?
Answer: No, you need to do both. But the most important commandment is still “love your neighbor.”
Question: The article says: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Rabbi Akiva says: “It is a great rule in the Torah.” It follows that if we keep this rule (Klal), all the individual elements (Prat) are already included in it, i.e., we will come to these elements automatically, without any effort, and there is nothing more for us to do.
What is the order of our correction?
Answer: In principle, it does not matter what it is. The main thing is to do it. Try to be closer to others in your heart.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 12/19/23
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