Question: How were the interconnections in ancient Babylon arranged? What were the people doing there?

Answer: It was an ordinary, primitive society. They lived very simply. Babylonians ate mainly fish, as they lived in a valley at the confluence of two rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. They grew buckwheat and some wheat.

In principle, the birthplace of wheat is Israel. But the very first time it appeared was in ancient Babylon, as noted in the documents. The Babylonians baked barley bread, ate fish, garlic, olives, and olive oil, and drank water and wine. That was enough for them.

Question: And what did they do in general? Did they exist like animals?

Answer: Man did little in general, except for the last hundred years when he suddenly began to work according to the current system.

In those days there was a lot of unproductive work and everything flowed slowly and calmly. This was the case in all countries. And what did Indians do? What did Asians or Africans do?

It is nowadays that everything goes by minutes and charts because it is even better if the mechanisms work without stopping, and therefore, the problem of unemployment has naturally arisen. It had never happened before because people did not work at such a pace.

Even 150 or 200 years ago, what did man do? How much could he produce in a day and at what pace did he work? Naturally, in the world there was no such abundance and overproduction (with which it is not clear what to do) as there is now.

Comment: I remember that back in the days of the Soviet Union, there was a very narrow assortment of goods. And then American, Chinese, and Turkish products appeared, the range expanded.

My Response: It was all very good and attractive for a time. And today, both men and women are dressed in “rags,” walk in sneakers, and no one pays attention to beautiful, decent clothes. It even becomes somewhat provocative because it shows how empty you are inside if you are so dressy on the outside. Even at all sorts of diplomatic receptions, everywhere.

A university teacher gives lectures almost wearing shorts. Where is this polish, jacket, tie, and white shirt? Not to mention the students at all. In the 50s and 60s, there was no such thing as a student not wearing a suit and tie. I remember myself! I had to dress like this. And today…

But all this is correct because the focus is changing for different values, from external to internal. Now a person is not judged by appearances.
[302066]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ancient People and Cultures of the Past” 3/8/13

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Question: What do you mean by fruit?

Answer: In our world, in order to get the fruits of plants, it is necessary to grow a tree for a long time, to perform certain manipulations on it, to care for, to fertilize it, to water it, and so on. And when we reach the full ripening of the fruit, then we can use it.

In the spiritual world, the fruit means real knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is knowledge about everything that surrounds us, about external and internal forces, and most importantly, about their source—the Creator.
[302019]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/21/22

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Comment: If you look at how society as a whole has developed, then, in principle, people have always been busy plowing fields, etc. They always engaged in physical labor.

My Response: And now the work is different; it flows into spiritual work. We can do everything else effortlessly with the help of automation, machinery, 3D printers, etc. so much so that it will not be difficult for anyone.

People move into a completely different environment, into a different production process—a spiritual one.

If we can do everything for ourselves with the help of information, media, all kinds of volumetric printers, interaction with each other, and everything else, then can you imagine where our development is pulling us? In general, we are moving to a completely different way of existence. We are moving away from matter.

Soon this matter should disappear altogether. Everything will pass into the world of forces. You will live at the level of the forces that bind you to others. And all kinds of material volumes will not take up space in your senses. The sensory organs will become more and more aware of the power manifestations of interconnections at the level of forces, not at the level of objects.
[302037]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. If You Lost Your Job” 3/13/14

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can drug addicts be cured?“

A global solution to drug addition depends on society at large.

We first need to build society so that it is based on ties of mutual consideration, support, encouragement and positive connections, such that people would not want to disconnect themselves from society. We would then feel a harmonious, warm and peaceful surrounding force in society, and then everyone in society would want to give themselves over to such a force, and not detach from it.

Drugs push us to detach from reality, and if we felt our surrounding reality as filled with a positive force, then we would not want to detach from it.

Creating such a positive enveloping umbrella over society depends on the extent of our mutual integration with society—how much we belong to society, and how much society is a part of us—and also on how loyal society is to its values of positive connection and mutual consideration, support and encouragement.

If such factors click into place, then we will feel as if we are all connected, and in our connection, we would accumulate the positive force dwelling in nature—a warm, strong and appealing force that would embrace us all.

Based on the video “Can Drug Addicts be Cured?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Living In a World of Intentions”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From the Mouth of a Sage” 

Selected Highlights

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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 1^st 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 2^nd 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 1^st 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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