Question: What is memory? Where is it stored?

Answer: There are several types of memory. One of them is memory at the chemical or electrochemical level, but it is the same. The other one is spiritual memory, which cannot be erased by some external, material effects.

This highest memory is the soul. It resides in its carrier called Masach, screen in Kabbalah.

If a person creates a screen in himself, then a person’s spiritual state begins to be recorded on it, which is beyond any external power to influence. This state is eternal, like a soul, and can change only in one direction: in the direction of getting closer to the higher root.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Pole Inversion” 5/15/11

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The problem with humanity is that we should have invented some developmental goals for ourselves earlier, but now we can’t because the next degree is not in the same direction and perspective as previous levels of development. Previously, we developed instinctively, under the pressure of nature, and everything was fine. In a way, we sort of thought, sort of did, sort of even made revolutions. In fact, it is not “us” at all.

There is no freewill here, but it seemed so to us because the development took place according to growing egoism, which was constantly increasing in us. We were just looking for the best way to realize it. And so we realized it, some this way, others that way, in accordance with their internal natural data, which we call mentality, a particularity.

But now we must ascend to another degree and, contrary to our egoism, build a connected society, something that was not done in Ancient Babylon. Then we were given the opportunity to settle apart from each other, and therefore, we did not need to dock together.

And now we have come to the need for full communication again. Absolutely complete! But we have it one-sided, economic and egoistic. We need to make it different exactly according to the condition of ancient Babylon, as Abraham told all Babylonians, all people on Earth need to get together and be friends, to become “as one man with one heart,” one desire, one family.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Organic food” 10/21/09

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Question: Is the development of humanity predetermined?

Answer: At this stage, there are only two ways of the development of humanity: either by the method of Kabbalah or by terrible, serious, irreversible blows. Unfortunately, there are no other ways. We are now at a specific point to solve the problem. By “now” I mean a few more months or a few more years. But time shortens very quickly.

When I was a novice scholar in Kabbalah, even before completing the dissertation and all my other works, when I only began to become acquainted with these materials, I had no idea that such a movement, such an evolution, even that a revolution was possible in the world.

And here, in 20 to 30 years, we have ended up in a completely different world that no longer operates according to the old principles, laws, and canons. And with every day it is felt more and more.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Europe Today” 1/26/11

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash, Article 24, “The Main Thing We Need”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”

Selected Highlights

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Were Jews ever really slaves?“

The people of Israel were a nation of slaves who escaped slavery in Egypt. This is what the story of Exodus discusses.

Being a slave means being enslaved to the human ego, our innate desires to enjoy at the expense of others, which determines our every desire, thought and action. Escaping that slavery means running away from the ego’s orders and rising to a different level. On the new level, we solely wish to observe the quality of bestowal, that it will guide our every desire, thought and action from now on.

What does “observing the quality of bestowal” mean? It means thinking about how to do good to everyone. Therefore, the escape from slavery in Egypt, as with all of the Torah’s accounts, is no historic story, rather it discusses our future development. We thus read such texts in order to learn about our future, what we will have to undergo in order to understand where we are headed. And it is written that we are headed out of slavery to freedom.

What is freedom? Freedom means being outside of the enslavement to our egos, that we think and act beneficially to everyone. We truly need freedom because once our sole wish is to benefit others, then we turn ourselves into conduits of the positive forces dwelling in nature: they pass through us to others. We then send everything we receive from nature to everyone, connecting everyone to nature’s quality of bestowal.

That state is called being a “trustworthy servant.” While it might sound like another slave-like state, being a connector between nature and humanity is in fact the greatest role that exists in our reality. It frees us from ourselves. It lets us realize the two desires that exist in reality—our desire to receive and nature’s desire to bestow—and we then take from nature what it wants for us, and take humanity’s deficiencies, and connect the two.

Based on the video “Were Jews Ever Really Slaves?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why the World Believes We Killed Shireen Abu Akleh”

On May 24, AP News reported, “Review suggests Israeli fire killed reporter,” but “no final word.” Two days later, CNN echoed AP News, declaring, “Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces.” The Palestinians refuse to allow forensic examination of the slug that killed Abu Akleh, and Israel already stated that no Israeli soldiers were firing any shots at the time of her death, but the world has made up its mind.

Following the reports, and in view of Israel’s stance, a student asked me this: “The most amazing thing to me is that they determined that Israel shot her on purpose, that Israeli soldiers killed a journalist deliberately! I know that an Israeli soldier would never deliberately shoot a civilian because it contradicts everything that every soldier is taught before he is allowed to take the first practice shot,” he protests. “So how can it be that the world is certain that we did it, that Israel deliberately killed a civilian?”

My answer to him was simple: The world wants it to be this way. The whole world wants to adopt this version because this is how it wants it to be. The whole world wants to accuse Israel of more and more crimes until the very existence of the Jewish state is delegitimized.

This is why not only CNN and AP, but almost the entire world media is against Israel and gives false accounts of what is happening. Worse yet, even if Israel could examine the slug that killed Abu Akleh and prove that it did not come from an Israeli gun, no one would believe it. In fact, no one would even bother to read Israel’s report; they would assume that we are lying even before they read the first word.

Trying to confront the Palestinian arguments on their level is a lost cause. We can say whatever we want, but the world will not listen to a single word, and cheer instead for every word that comes from the Palestinians.

If we want legitimacy, we need to take a completely different approach. We will earn the world’s legitimacy to live in the State of Israel when we begin to live like the people of Israel, and stop trying to live like the rest of the world. Subconsciously, this is what the world expects from us.

The world blames us for everything that is bad in this world because they feel, even if they do not admit it to themselves, that we have the power and the obligation to make the world good. And since the world is not good, it is our fault.

Humanity does not believe that anyone has that capability but us, Jews, and does not expect anyone else to help the world emerge from its crises. They expect this only from us, and resent us for not doing so. This is the real reason why antisemitism intensifies every time there is trouble.

The Palestinians are attacking us not because they want the land back, although this is how they feel, but because we are not using the land for the purpose that the world entrusted it in our hands. We are the nation that was told that if we do not unite as one man with one heart, God will turn the mountain on us like a vault. We are the nation that committed to loving others as much as we love ourselves, and we are the nation that was commanded to be the light of the nations, to be a model of unity for the entire world.

We are also the nation that broke our oath time and time again, until we were exiled from the land precisely for hating one another. 75 years ago, the League of Nations gave it back to us, but since we have not built a model society, the world wants to take it back from us.

The press merely reflects the sentiment of the world. If we restore our unity, the world will change its attitude toward us and the reports will change accordingly. Until we do so, we should not expect any positive coverage from the media.

—

You will find more on the link between Jewish unity and hatred of Israel in 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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Medium published my new article “Imagine Your Child Is Not Your Own”

Imagine a man becoming the father of a baby boy after many years of anxious childlessness. ‎The longing intensifies the father’s love for his son, and he plunges headlong into fatherhood. He holds his baby boy after meals so he can burp, talks to him, and changes his diapers. As his son grows, he teaches him everything he knows, takes him to little league ‎practices and cheers with the other proud parents during games. Whenever his son gets in trouble at school, with other kids, or with his teammates, his dad listens and gives him some fatherly advice. And every night, before he falls asleep, his dad sits by his bed and reads him a bedtime story.

The father is so proud of his son that his friends at work tease him about it. They say that he thinks there are no other children in the world except his son, and because he loves his son so much, he doesn’t like other children. The father laughs, but admits that as with any ‎teasing, there is some truth to it.‎

Then, one day, two police officers and a social worker knock on the door and show the father papers proving that there was a terrible mistake and babies were switched at birth. His son is not his son, but someone else’s, and his son’s biological parents have already been notified and want him to come live with them as soon as possible. Their son, who is his biological son, also wants to get to know him and come live with him. The social worker and ‎the officers explain that his son would have to go live with his biological parents.‎

We may not be aware of it, but the father’s tragedy is very similar to a process that all of humanity is experiencing, with one major difference. In the case of the father, the loss is unbearable. In the case of humanity, we are about to find out what a nasty son we’ve had, and what a wonderful son is about to replace him.‎

The strangers’ son we have been raising is our ego. Ego has demanded everything from us and felt no gratitude. Every time we satisfied him, he demanded more. Finally, he demanded more than we could provide; we have depleted the supply; we have run out of money, run out of resources, and run out of strength.‎

What’s more, our son, Ego, has been inciting us against all other boys, made them look awful in our eyes, and made us hate them and their parents. He even made us fight against them. He blinded us to the fact that we really needed those other kids and parents, that they gave us everything we have: work, companionship, and everything we needed in life.‎

Because we have reached the end of our strength, we are beginning to open our eyes and see that Ego is not such a beloved son, but a monster. Even more important, we are beginning to realize that he is not really our son, and nothing really binds us to him except his lies about our connection. Gradually, we are discovering that our real siblings are everyone else. They, all ‎of humanity, are our family.‎

Now that we are beginning to realize the truth, we can develop a new attitude to ‎other people. Initially, we will take baby steps. But as more and more people recognize the truth about their ego and about their attitude toward others, we will learn to walk more confidently together. We will learn to care about others where before we felt only indifference or even spite. We will direct our malice toward our enemy within, and by doing ‎so, we will defeat our one and only enemy, our fake son, Ego.‎
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “No Surprise: UN Promotes Palestinian Sovereignty Plan with Jerusalem as Capital”

Last week, in peculiar proximity to Israel’s Jerusalem Day celebrations, it became known that the United Nations is working intensely with the Palestinian Authority and a Jordanian architectural design company to establish eastern Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state by 2030, drawing up “elaborate plans for the expropriation of Israeli land.”

The plan, built by UN-HABITAT, the United Nations programme for human settlements, the International Peace and Cooperation Center (IPCC), a Palestinian urban planning and development organization, and Arabtech Jardaneh, an engineering and architectural design firm, aims to “see parts of the Oslo Accords appealed.” It also envisions Jerusalem as “the Capital of the State of Palestine, its beating heart, and its foremost metropolitan area,” and has drawn up “elaborate plans for the expropriation of Israeli land for the project.”

While it is unsettling for Israeli ears to hear such news, we should not be surprised. As I have written and stated multiple times, the UN, which represents the nations of the world, does not want us here. It regrets its 1947 decision to divide the land between Jews and Arabs, and would like to see Israel wiped off the map.

We should not be surprised that this is happening since we ourselves are making it happen. There is a very simple formula for the acceptance of the Jewish people among the nations: When we unite with our enemies, they unite against us; when we unite with each other, our enemies unite with us.

Jerusalem should be the spiritual center of the Jewish people. In other words, it should be a powerhouse of unity, a model of solidarity and cohesion for the whole world.

The Hebrew name of Jerusalem is Yerushalayim, from the words Ir Shlema, city of wholeness. This is the place where all the conflicting forces of the world should complement one another and benefit from each other rather than try to destroy one another. Currently, the conflicts are there, but complementarity is nowhere in sight. This is why the city is so full of strife, conflicts, and violence, and why the nations vie over it.

We should not expect peace to prevail in Jerusalem until we make peace among ourselves. We are the ones who have been commanded to unite “as one man with one heart” and thus become “a light to the nations.” We are the ones who gave the world the motto “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and we are the ones who are expected to demonstrate it. This is the meaning of being a light to the nations.

After World War II, the nations decided that we deserved another chance and voted to establish a Jewish state in the historic land of Israel. On the surface, the decision was motivated primarily by the horrors of the Holocaust, but behind it was the expectation that we would also return to our calling.

But we have not returned to our calling to be a light of unity to the nations. Since our return, we have demonstrated division, hatred, collusion with enemies against our own people, and hatred among factions of the Jewish society. We have let down humanity.

The only way we can remain in our historic land is by returning to our historic mission to be a beacon of unity to the world. When we recognize the sovereignty of love for one another over us, the world will recognize our sovereignty over Jerusalem.
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Medium published my new article “Climate Crisis — Not Child’s Play”

Environment Day sand sculpture is seen at the Bay of Bengal Sea’s Puri beach as it is creating by sand artist Manas Sahoo for awareness among people on the coastal area on the occasion of World Environment Day at Puri, 65 km away from the eastern Indian state Odisha’s capital city Bhubaneswar on June 5, 2021. (Photo by STR/NurPhoto)

The planet is running out of time — humanity is utilizing the resources of the world faster than it can recover naturally. That is the United Nation’s blunt assessment of the climate crisis for the occasion of World Environment Day, celebrated June 5th.

This year’s theme is, “Only One Earth.” But beyond the catchy slogans, the fact is that we do not seem to realize that we indeed have only one place to live: Planet Earth. We continue to shoot at our own feet with our reckless actions towards our surrounding environment.

In spite of how many people keep shouting, talking endlessly about the environmental crisis, how many meetings take place, and how many decisions are made, nothing seems to help. Either we just leave the state of the planet as it is now, ignore all the problems and wait for the next disaster to happen, or we admit that everything that we have done up until now is ineffective and fruitless and finally make the sharp turn required.

To raise awareness about the precarious state of the planet, beginning next year, Israeli schools will make classes on the climate crisis mandatory for students of all ages, the Education and the Environmental Protection Ministries recently announced. They will begin integrating an environmental program equivalent to one hour per week into the curriculum for students from kindergarten to high school.

Will this make a difference or will it be as unsuccessful as previous efforts to solve environmental problems? The answer does not depend on the hours spent on these studies or who will develop them. Rather, it depends on what is taught and the extent to which students understand the causes of the climate crisis and how to solve it.

We know that the severity of the global environmental crisis can be compared to a spaceship coming toward us to destroy the planet, and that we who live on Earth must prepare to avoid being harmed by it. And how do we prepare? We have to explain that the climate crisis is a consequence of a human crisis. So, the solution that will ultimately bring the world into balance is for us to change ourselves to cultivate positive human relationships and grow closer to each other internally. That is, the heart must expand, not physically, but emotionally. To start feeling the entire world as a part of each and every one of us and for us to care for the entire world as we care for ourselves.

This is true because nature is a system of integral connections that operates through a hierarchy. What happens on any particular degree in the system affects all the other degrees. The intensity of the impact on the system corresponds with where it stands in the hierarchical ranking. The human race is the highest level in nature, above the inanimate, vegetative, and animal. Therefore, the part of the system that destroys the ecological balance the most are the egoistic actions of human beings that disregard the interests of others, including the other parts of the system of nature.

Humanity can do nothing to correct this self-focused tendency until it recognizes that its harmful instinct rules all its decisions and is the primary source of the imbalance in nature. By learning how to build relationships based on mutual understanding, care and cooperation, a positive force is created which is capable of restoring harmony in all levels in nature. This is the crucial truth that must be taught.

When we learn how to transcend all of our negative egoistic tendencies and recognize that we are all individual parts in a single, connected and completely interdependent mechanism, we will also comprehend that doing good to others is also good to us. Just as today we are the ones who destroy all of nature, we also have the power to repair it. The planet’s countdown is on but we still have a window of opportunity to control it if we change our thoughts, actions, and desires to upgrade our human relationships.
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