Jerusalem (“Ir shlema“) is translated from Hebrew as the perfect city. The word “Ir – city” in Kabbalah is the inner state of a person when everything he does is assembled in him into one single perfect structure. It is like his home and he wants to relate his inner state to the Creator.

This happens either within one person or the whole of humanity when one supreme value is formed over all existing disagreements between people. This is why Jerusalem is called the heart of the world, the capital of the world.

In addition, it is also called the City of David in honor of King David who lived 3,000 years ago and revealed the perfect state in himself.

But Jerusalem existed long before that time. According to the sources and what is passed down from generation to generation, we did not build anything new here. On the contrary, we accepted everything that was already on this earth and only raised it to the next degree.

Basically, Israel prides itself on taking the inanimate level and elevating it to the spiritual.

Question: What is the difference between Hebron and Jerusalem from a spiritual point of view?

Answer: Before coming to Jerusalem, King David ruled seven years in Hebron (from the word “hibur – unity”). And when he attained perfect awe, he realized from his inner attainment that he needed to move to Jerusalem and build the Temple there.

In spiritual terms, Jerusalem strives upward and Hebron yearns downward. Hebron is connected with the desire of Malchut, and therefore, the graves of the forefathers are there in the cave of Machpelah: Adam and his wife, Abraham and his wife, and Jacob.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/22/22

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Baal HaSulam writes that the nation of Israel was based on just one principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the law of mutual guarantee. But they could not observe it because egoism grew, evolution continued, and they had to build the Temple with an altar in the material world.

If earlier a person sacrificed his egoism, later in the external world it began to manifest itself in the form of animal and plant sacrifices, where supposedly all kinds of egoistic qualities of a person were taken and sacrificed for the soul’s ascension.

But this is an external manifestation of a person’s inner correction when he is ready to give everything that is in him in order to turn the qualities of reception into the quality of bestowal, to change his egoistic movements to altruistic impulses.

Question: If we talk about nature as the Creator, as an upper force that controls everything, how can this reconcile with the fact that there are some stones where some unfortunate animal is taken, killed, and some words said? And how does this relate to the correction of the soul?

Answer: It is very hard to understand. If we were in an ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, we would see that it is like a slaughterhouse where cows, calves, and sheep were slaughtered, bread was baked, and wine and water were poured on stone tables upon which animals were butchered. This is some kind of incomprehensible work like in a slaughterhouse.

But in fact, it is all internal work. Unfortunately it should be held at this level too because this is the lowest level of egoism of a person who is corrected in this way.

We consist of two levels: animal and human. The human level is corrected by the fact that we change ourselves from receiving to giving, from all bad and negative egoistic qualities to positive, altruistic qualities. While doing this, we should not forget, at the same time, that we are in this world.

How can we perform such actions in our world? We take the animal that is in us— this is personified by any kosher animal—and kill it within ourselves, that is, kill the animal nature in yourself and then burn it in a certain way and eat it, which means, use it correctly.

In other words, we must raise it to the level of service of a person within himself who is already in connection with the Creator. This is an allegorical personification of correcting our qualities and raising them to a spiritual level.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/22/22

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Question: Is there any difference if a book was written by a single person like Baal HaSulam or by ten people like Rabbi Shimon and his students?

Answer: In Kabbalah either one person writes a book about what one attains, as Baal HaSulam did, or a group of people who are connected together write a book. Between them, there are various states in which they begin to perceive the Creator differently. This is what they describe.

Moreover, the states that Rabbi Shimon and his students went through among themselves, they described in the form of journeys to some earthly places. But in fact, they did not move from the cave they were in. Everything happened only in one place and in connection between them.

The more they increased their connection with each other, the more they attained the Creator. And vice versa, the more they became estranged from each other, the less they felt the Creator. Those scrutinies of nearing and distancing between each other in the ten and accordingly with the Creator is what they recorded. And they are included in The Book of Zohar.

Baal HaSulam wrote that the students of Rashbi attained all 125 steps. This means that they revealed all their original egoism, rose above it in connection with each other, and felt the single upper force in this connection.

Accordingly, they became similar to it as one man with one heart and attained the Creator in their common desire.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/15/22

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Comment: Michael writes: “Now more than ever, there is a huge hatred that rules everything. I am sure it will divide us, those who were once brothers and sisters, for thousands of years. We will never be the same again, we will not sing naive songs about friendship and love: ‘Children of different nations, we live dreaming of peace… . Youth sing the song of friendship… . You cannot stifle this song, you cannot kill it… .’ Did we really sing that? Today we all burn with hatred. What can we do about it?”

Answer: We were just like children in kindergarten who were taught to sing. They did not know; they opened their mouths and sang without understanding the meaning of these words.

Today, we gradually begin to understand the meaning of these words, and we do not want to sing these songs. Tomorrow, we will begin to realize how really great these words were, but no one has ever been able to implement them.

And then we will strive to think and dream about how we can get closer to this realization because it is impossible to exist without it. We will find a way to achieve a world in which children of different nations, all of humanity will feel like one unified whole.

Question: “We live dreaming of peace” was the anthem of the democratic youth, as far as I remember. So you are saying that we sang these songs kind of mindlessly?

Answer: We perceived it like children. Both adults and children perceived it this way. And now we are given suffering and reason in order for us to understand what we lack in these words, in our awareness of them. And we will come to the point that we will begin to implement the lyrics of this song at their true level. I see it coming. You’ll see!

Comment: I take this external song, put it in my heart, and sing it.

My Response: Yes, and all this is happening. It depends on us to shorten the time. Acceleration depends on us. We must try.

Question: And this transition, which you say should happen through the mind, through the heart, how does it happen?

Answer: Through gradual awareness. It is not just some kind of leap or hocus-pocus. This is what people want to happen, really want to attract themselves to this state or this state to themselves, performing all kinds of actions between them in our world—rapprochement and so on.

That is, it is a lot of work both physical, moral, and pedagogical. In general, we still have a lot of work ahead of us here.

Question: So the events that are happening should have happened?

Answer: We are yet to see that everything negative that happened at all times among all nations was all only suffering from the fact that we were moving away from each other and did not understand how much we should, on the contrary, get closer.

And now all these sufferings will manifest themselves in us and push us toward closeness. And then we will be grateful for them and realize how much there is only happiness in the world and movement toward the light.

Everything that happens is a movement toward happiness and light.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/3/22

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Question: It is written that when a person dies, he is brought before the high court: heaven or hell. What is this high court?

Answer: These are terrible states when a person reveals his attitude toward the world, how he lived, and how bad he was. At the same time, he is full of regret and sorrow, and understands where it all came from. But this is no excuse for him. In other words, everything that a person begins to realize about himself is called hell.

What we imagine about standing before the high court and being judged for some actions in this world, none of that is true and there is no point talking about it. Everything that happens in the upper world is nothing we can imagine in our egoistic thoughts.

Comment: But if one did not have such notions about the high court, he would do whatever he pleases in our world. This way at least there are some limits.

My Response: I don’t think it keeps people from misbehaving. Who really knows or believes these fables? People are not afraid of anything.

A while back they used to be more primitive. It is quite possible that such notions restrained them. But all the same, a person’s egoism prevails over everything. So if one does not strive for his correction and to really build a different person out of himself, someone above egoism, then nothing will help him.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/11/22

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When one corrects himself consciously and automatically puts his spiritual life above the level of the body, he does not require blows or physical suffering. He runs toward the goal, ahead of the rod that drives him to happiness. But if he does not work on correction, then he moves under the blows of this stick. This is the only way.

If necessary, this life is taken away from him. Next time the soul will dress in a body and will exist again. We are given chance after chance because nature is obliged to bring all its parts into harmony. This is its general law, the law of universal balance.

Question: Is a person asked whether he wants it or not?

Answer: A person is not asked anything! What does one understand in this life?

Comment: Then it is not so clear. On one hand, a person has the freedom to choose how to develop in relation to nature, toward the goal or against it. On the other hand, he is not asked anything.

My Response: We exist in a system of still, vegetative, and animate nature. We are shown the imbalance between us so that upon reaching the balance we come to a higher level—being similar to the Creator.

How incongruent we are with the general global nature and the harmony we lack between us is gradually revealed. If we overcome this with the help of Kabbalah, we rise to the next degree. If we do not overcome, nature still pushes us forward with suffering and forces us to reveal the method of correction.

We cannot correct ourselves except by the method of Kabbalah because this is the only way to attract the upper light to ourselves, the only way to reach contact with the Creator, with the upper force that corrects our egoism.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Partnership Agreement” 4/7/10

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I become more compassionate and empathetic?“

During the 2021-22 winter in Israel, there were several cases of elderly people found on the verge of hypothermia due to their inability to pay the costs involved in heating their homes. As such, a petition emerged that called to cover the heating costs for all elderly people who could not afford their electricity bills.

I would take such a proposal a step further: that a national plan should be prepared whereby the elderly would not need to pay for heating in the winter at all.

In general, such a situation brings up the question of empathy, namely: what do we need to do in order to feel the pain of others? That is, when we are freezing cold, we feel such pain distinctly and act on it immediately. However, if we know about others who are cold, we are inclined not to act with the same level of urgency.

To empathize with the pain of others, we need to open our hearts to them. “Opening our hearts” means participating in their sorrow. In this particular instance, it means that we should act toward them as we would act for ourselves if we were freezing cold.

The problem is that our nature makes us take care of ourselves while keeping others at a distance. Yet, we should know that the upper force, the Creator, which is a force of love, bestowal and connection, holds our nature, our hearts. Therefore, if we would ask the Creator to open our hearts to the sorrows of others, then we would receive an open gate to the world’s correction, i.e. to a state where we become sorrow-free and achieve balance, peace and harmony. Moreover, by doing so, we would receive a feeling of the upper force, which would fulfill us completely.

As for this particular case with heating for the elderly in winter, there is a key argument—“Where would we get the money to pay for all of that electricity?”—to which I think that if the people in this country were all concerned about fixing this problem, then we would find that it is no large sum of money. All we need is to increase care for each other.

Based on the video “The Need to Increase Care for Others” 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 “Pesach (Passover)” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love of God and the Love of Man” 

Selected Highlights

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

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My new article on Linkedin “A War over Worldviews”

The war in Ukraine seems to be at a stalemate; Russia had underestimated the determination of the Ukrainian people and the military power of its army, and Ukraine is not strong enough to drive the Russian forces out of the country altogether. As a result, a war that many expected to last no more than two weeks before Ukraine capitulates has become a war of attrition that is decimating Ukraine’s cities, displacing a quarter of its people, so far, and killing thousands of civilians. On the other end, the war is exhausting Russia’s military might, depleting its resources, and frustrating its leadership.

Yet, a more clandestine, yet very significant process is taking place in Ukraine: a farewell to imposing ideologies and the onset of a more rational approach to governance. Winston Churchill, England’s prime minister during World War II, knew a thing or two about fighting against tyrants. In 1947, he said, “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

I tend to agree with this statement, although clearly, we have witnessed the faults of Western regimes since 1947 more than once. Yet, it is not because we need to change the Western approach to governance, but because we need to add a missing element that will solidify it and guarantee its success: sincere concern for others.

If Western governments are plagued by the same hunger for power that soils every other regime, they will inevitably become despotic, too, albeit perhaps with titles that sound more appealing, and therefore more misleading.

In order to succeed, the goal of Western civilization must be to establish societies that are not only free from tyranny, but free from hatred of others, as hatred is the cause of tyranny and oppression.

Liberation from hatred is humanity’s next step. It is imperative to maintain democracy while we are evolving, but we must not think that democracy is the end of the road. All the while, we should be teaching ourselves how to care for others, starting with our own countries, and ending with caring for other nations just as we care for our own. Only in this way will humanity have a future that is not strewn with bloodshed.

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