Therefore, we should know that we were given love of friends to learn how to avoid blemishing the King’s honor. In other words, if he has no other desire except to give contentment to the King, he will certainly blemish the King’s honor, which is called “Passing on Kedusha [holiness/sanctity] to the external ones.” For this reason, we mustn’t underestimate the importance of the work in love of friends, for by that he will learn how to exit self-love and enter the path of love of others. And when he completes the work of love of friends, he will be able to be rewarded with love of the Creator (Rabash, “Come unto Pharaoh—2,” Article 13, 1986)

Comment: There is certain absoluteness in this article that there is no gradual revelation of the Creator. Rabash says strongly: “When he completes the work of love of friends, he will be able to be rewarded with love of the Creator.”

My Response: This happens because there are no partial decisions relative to the Creator and there is no way to do something by a few percent. Regarding the Creator, one can act only from a completely corrected Kli (desire). That is why it is said: “From love for the created beings to the love for the Creator.”

The more you love your friends or connect with them, the closer you come to the Creator. But the fact is that it may not be felt. After all, we do have degrees of closeness between us, but we have not yet revealed the Creator. In order to do this, we need a complete Kli.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, Lesson 2, 7/22/22

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Question: Some scientists say that if reality is just a holographic illusion, then it cannot be argued that consciousness is a function of the brain. What really is consciousness?

Answer: Consciousness is not a function of our brain. Consciousness is part of energy, matter, information, and properties I receive when I connect to the general information volume. That is, this is what is formed in me when I am connected to the general volume.

Comment: Scientists believe that this transformational change of our views of biological structures allowed researchers to learn that medicine and healing processes can change under the influence of the holographic paradigm.

My Response: Absolutely. After all, our body is programmed. It is controlled by the very forces that we receive from outside. These forces carry all the information about the body as well as about its health. If we correctly connect to the external information, then our body is healed. Conversely, incorrect connection causes all the diseases.

Comment: Some scientists also say that the apparent physical structure of the body is but a holographic projection of consciousness, it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible for our health than current medical wisdom allows. Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work  well because, in the holographic domain of thought, images are ultimately as real as reality.

My Response: Of course. Unfortunately, modern medicine exists inside this consumer. In fact, we should think not about what we receive inside, but how we connect to the general information field. The quality of our connection with the external field is, in principle, responsible for the state of our health. We must be aligned with it!

This field is built only on the property of bestowal and love, like all of nature around us.

If we wish to create the same properties in us, then we will connect to it and begin to perceive its information completely unhindered. Thus, we will become absolutely healthy and will understand and feel the whole of creation, the whole of the universe. We will become as eternal and perfect as all nature.

And our desire to constantly separate, dismember, and compartmentalize everything only moves us away from health, eternity, and perfection, and does not allow us to see the true picture of the universe.

The result is all the crises we are experiencing. They are needed in order to push us to change our paradigm, to ensure that we correctly connect to this general field.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Hologram” 7/28/11

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Comment: I read about some research about the impact on the neurotypical students of placing children with Autism Spectrum Disorder with neurotypical students. A researcher found that the neurotypical students picked up some of the behaviors of the ASD students.

My Response: The fact is that autistic people do not have awareness of their environment or the world around them. They interact only in a specific, limited way where they feel they are in control of the situation. Their contact with the world occurs within a very narrow range. Even their speech and actions are very restricted and inflexible.

We need to understand them. This is a borderline property of souls characteristic of our time.

If we look at humanity with different eyes, we would see a huge number of people who are mentally and psychologically not quite well.

After all, apart from twenty to thirty percent of autistic people and all others who are in various institutions, most of the people you see on the street also do not feel quite well, comfortable, or adequate in our world. They perceive themselves to be strangers in this world or the world as alien relative to themselves.

This is not a problem because in this world we all are truly strangers, like some kind of aliens. Our soul has descended from the upper world, and we must raise it back there during this lifetime in the material world.

At the same time, the body of both a healthy person and an autistic person, should we call him sick in this sense, remains animalistic. But the process of the soul ascending from our world to the upper world really gives a person such a sense of transformation that he sometimes feels mentally, emotionally, and psychologically unwell, that is, not as a normal animal but as existing between two worlds.

He feels that he belongs somewhere else, does not understand what is happening in this world and does not feels it as someone firmly rooted in this world does.

Today we are in a process when, in some ways, we are all a bit autistic and will only be more and more like them.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Special Territory” 5/17/11

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is instantaneous transmission/conduction possible?“

The system we exist in is absolutely closed, integral and analog. Everything is interconnected out of time, i.e. time is zero.

There is practically no space between objects. We feel objects existing at some distance, as interacting in some kind of wave, time and process, but in fact, it is all nonexistent. Distance, time, motion and interaction is all superimposed on one single integral picture of nature by our egoistic self-serving mode of perception.

When we look at an object, we start dividing it into parts with our egoism, and we see distances between these parts, “painting” various connection between objects. We perceive distance in such a way because of the way we are created.

However, if we had the same makeup as the objects themselves, a makeup that is integral, global and located outside of our egoism, which divides and treats everything from the position of how much closer or further away from us the object is, and how much more useful or harmful one or another phenomenon is to us, then we would not share anything.

We would perceive these objects as a single whole, with no distance, time, movement, and no transmission or conduction of information. Everything would be instantaneous, in one place.

In other words, everything depends on our perception and our senses. If we correct our perception to perceive and sense the integral and whole reality, then we will see that everything exists in a single expression, and transmission and conduction of information would be instantaneous as we would gain the perception of all information as omnipresent.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Human Genome” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 17, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Opening the Locked Gates”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 16

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 3, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 14, Item 1

Selected Highlights

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 7/31/22

This week, we will be commemorating the anniversary of the passing of one of the world’s greatest spiritual giants: Isaac Luria, known as “the holy ARI.” Although unknown to many, his writings form the basis of today’s wisdom of Kabbalah. It is thanks to him that Baal HaSulam was able to make the wisdom of Kabbalah accessible to the entire world in the 20th century.

The ARI was truly unique. Not only did he pass away at the early age of 38, but everything we have from him, volumes upon volumes of wisdom, he dictated to his disciple Rav Chaim Vital, who wrote down his every word, and he did it all within the final 18 months of his life.

The ARI took a wisdom that contains all the secrets of life, and stripped it from the countless stories and legends that enveloped it precisely in order to make it abstruse. He felt that in his generation, it was time to begin to reveal the true meaning of the hidden wisdom: the wisdom of Kabbalah.

When he first came to Safed, the city where he spent the final months of life, and where he taught his disciples, no one recognized his greatness. At that time, the greatest Kabbalist was RAMAK, and the ARI also went to learn from him.

But when RAMAK, a great Kabbalist in his own right, realized the greatness of the ARI, he praised him publicly in the highest terms so everyone would recognize his greatness: “Know that there is one man who is sitting here,” he said about the ARI, “who will rise after me and enlighten the eyes of the generation in the wisdom of Kabbalah. For in my days, the channels were blocked, and in his days, the channels will be revealed. Know that he is a great man, a spark of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.”

By saying that the ARI was connected to Rabbi Shimon, author of The Book of Zohar, the seminal book in the wisdom of Kabbalah, RAMAK was actually saying that all the words of the ARI are true and holy, and that anyone who wishes to learn the authentic wisdom should study with him.

It took many years, even centuries, for the great wisdom of the ARI to become known, but today we know that were it not for Lurianic Kabbalah, which is named after him, the secrets of the wisdom of connection, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, would still be concealed from us.

Thanks to the teaching that the ARI had founded, and which Baal HaSulam interpreted for us, we know how humanity should live, how to build a sustainable society where people care for one another and practice mutual responsibility.

In today’s tumultuous times, it is the great wisdom of the ARI, wrapped in the commentaries of Baal HaSulam, that enables us to make sense of things and find our way in the growing confusion of humanity. Through their wisdom, if we want to, we will sail safe through the troubled water.

[Image: Old city of Zfar by Leonid Levitas @Wikimedia Commons]
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My new article on Linkedin “The One Thing AI Cannot Give”

A new pilot at a school in Tel-Aviv aims to overcome one of Israel’s biggest challenges in the education system: the shortage of teachers. Instead of human teachers, the pilot uses a virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI) system that replaces some of the teachers. I have no doubt that AI systems, computers, and the internet can teach children anything humans can teach them, if not more. Providing information is not a problem today, and schools in general are not needed for this. The problem is not teaching, but educating, meaning raising children to be social human beings who can interact with their environment in a healthy, positive manner, and form a solid and safe society. AI cannot teach that.

Today, people’s main problem is not that they need to know more. It is easy to learn anything you want through online platforms or traditional ones. Yet people feel unhappy or insecure not for lack of knowledge, but for lack of positive, warm relationships with other people. If people have no one to trust, no one to love, and who would love them back, they will not be happy, they will not be positive elements in society, and they will not succeed in life.

AI cannot teach human relationships. It cannot be a role model that children want to follow. This task—raising children to be confident and happy adults—is the sole domain of human educators.

Although English often overlooks this nuance, the difference between education and teaching is that teaching means imparting people with information, while educating means turning individuals into confident people who realize their potential and contribute to society.

Education, therefore, is the single most important trade. Good education, in the sense I just described, is the basis of any stable and sustainable society. If we want a future where our children are happy and lead a good life, they need educators who guide them into being caring and connected human beings. No AI system can teach that, only educators who teach by personal example that children want to emulate can shape today’s children into tomorrow’s thriving society.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Blinded by Hate”

There is a new “weapon” that Palestinians use against Israelis: blinding lasers. Every night, residents of a certain Palestinian village direct strong lasers into the eyes of Israeli drivers in order to blind them and hopefully cause them to make an accident. So far, there has been no response on the part of the Israeli army, other than stating that the army “is working in a number of ways to uproot the phenomenon.” When people are blinded by hate, there is no end to what they will do to hurt their hated ones. Israel’s response should therefore incorporate two elements: retaliating against the terror and mitigating the hatred.

The first element is relatively straightforward. The response should be one that will deter the perpetrators from repeating their actions. Therefore, the rule of thumb here is simple: When someone comes to kill you, kill him first. In practical terms, it means that the army should fire at the sources of the lasers.

Nevertheless, we should not hope that curbing one mode of terrorism will prevent terrorists from finding other ways to terrorize and hurt Israelis. As long as there is unbounded hatred, Palestinians will find countless ways to hurt us.

Here is where we can make the real difference. The Palestinians’ hatred toward us is not because of a territorial struggle or any other reason they proclaim, even if they believe what they are saying. The Palestinians hate us because we hate each other. Their aversion to us reflects our aversion to each other.

This is true not only for the Palestinians, but for every non-Jew who hates Jews. To the extent that we hate each other, the nations of the world hate us. The higher the mountain of hate between us, the stronger the hatred toward us that we bring down on the nations. In fact, the name Mt. Sinai comes from the Hebrew words Mount of Sinaa [hatred]. Our sages explain that it is called so because of the hatred that came down from it to the nations of the world (Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Shabbat, 89a).

In short, we are generating hatred towards us through our own hatred of each other. We must understand that if we want to “defeat” terrorism, and all the hatred toward Jews and Israelis, we must defeat the hatred within us for each other.

Interestingly, when I say this to non-Jews, they often agree. But when I say this to Jews, they often become aggressive and venomous. They argue that I am making this up, and all the quotes I bring from centuries of our sages writing these exact words do not help. Once, after a lecture in New York, a Jew who refused to accept my words tried to physically assault me.

I can understand the resistance. If we accept this statement, it puts the responsibility for antisemitism, terrorism, and millennia of abuse that our nation suffered in our lap, the lap of the Jewish people, rather than to pin it on the aggressors. Declaring that Jewish inner hatred incites Jew-hatred among the nations pulls the rug from under the arguments that attribute antisemitism to religious, racial, economic, and social causes. It creates one common cause for all the cataclysms that have ever struck the Jewish people, and that cause is our own responsibility. I understand why this would be impossible to accept.

However, it is not my idea, but the idea of all our sages throughout the ages. The people who engendered the Jewish nation, who solidified its peoplehood, and who gave it its unique values and manners, all advocated this exact message: Sinaat Hinam [baseless hatred] has been our curse since our inception as a nation, and the only thing we need to cure.ADVERTISEMENT

Since we are full of hatred, it is hard for us to agree that hatred is the cause of our misfortunes. We tend to blame our troubles on the side we hate. But it is not this or that side that causes our troubles, but the hatred itself. As the two books I have written about it show (see links below), our spiritual leaders throughout the ages tried to teach this to us, yet we refused. We coined the tenet “Love your neighbor as yourself”; it is time we tried it out.

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Read these books for more information on the responsibility of the Jewish people for the hatred toward them: The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord, and Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour.
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Filed under: Anti-Semitism, Israel Today, New Publications | Add Comment / Ask Question →

Question: Should we feel all the Hisaronim (desires) of our friends and raise them to the Creator or is there one that everyone has?

Answer: We must understand that all our aspirations, although expressed in different words and seemingly not similar to each other, are still internally translated into the same language and have the same meaning.

So, it does not matter. No matter what we say, we still have one goal, one system of moving toward the goal, one reason to come to it. In general, we understand each other, we experience the same thing.

And the fact that sometimes we cannot express what we want or that we have different languages does not matter. In spirituality, it all matches and again comes to one single desire, intention, and goal. And if we merge into it, we have to make a little effort and achieve it.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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