Question: If a person did not use the opportunity to reveal the meaning of life and lived it the way everyone lives, what remains as a result of all his efforts, passions, aspirations, and hopes?

Answer: Nothing. The animate body dies and its informational part continues to exist in a new body and develops further. And so it happens again and again. Each generation is born anew, that is, naturally; it is not bodies that are born but information that passes into new parts again and again.

It seems to us that we give birth to children by giving a woman our seed, she gets impregnated, and a new person is born. No. It just seems that way because it is just the animate part.

The fact is that at the same time we transfer to each other a huge amount of information that exists, as it were, around this seed that is fertilized and begins to develop in the mother. This information is all around us. It is our most important essence; it determines generations and their gradual change and growth.

We live in a generation where we begin to seriously ask why we exist because the accumulation of information forces us to learn about the meaning of life. Ultimately, this is a question about the meaning of suffering.

It is expressed in the fact that a person begins to feel the state he is in: this life is like a dream, it is not real, it is some kind of a game. I get up in the morning, run to work, do something—what for, why? Everyone around me does the same thing running back and forth. It is like a kindergarten. Something incomprehensible. I participate in the general game.

I watch TV, they constantly show me the way I should be, what I should purchase, how I should behave, and tell me I should take an example from the rich and famous. There is a game going on all around.

Some pictures are constantly being played out in front of me, and I repeat them all the time. I see this artist, and I am already acting like him. I read something, saw something, heard something, and according to it, like a monkey, I began to behave the same. That is how we live.

I even catch myself  the moment I see myself imitating the image, the example I saw somewhere, this is how I am going to approach, this is how I am going to turn out, this is how I am going to act, like a wound-up mannequin participating in some kind of a common game. And so is everyone else.

When you look at it from above, a picture emerges that is stunning in its primitiveness, amazing in its pre-conceived flat emptiness! And when we understand this, while at the level of this emptiness, then, of course, we come to this feeling that we are in a dream.

It is said in Kabbalah that we are all asleep—the whole world is asleep—we are in an unconscious state relative to spirituality. I do not see that I am being controlled, I do not see my next state, the next moment.

Of course, I can assume something. But in fact, we see that we cannot plan anything in advance to make it come true. It turns out that we need the revelation of the Creator, i.e., the revelation of global nature. And this happens through self-knowledge.

Question: And there are no boundaries in this desire?

Answer: There is a boundary; when you reach the absolute revelation of your own and the external nature, you will come to overall harmony.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Individualist” 1/15/10

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Question: You have repeatedly said that there is no coercion in spirituality. Why does nature put so much pressure on us?

Answer: The fact is that you will not be dragged along the spiritual path by force, but the suffering will make such a “cutlet” out of you, that in the end you will come to this path yourself. First of all, there must be awareness.

Coercion means I don’t explain anything to you, I don’t bring you to the need for awareness, I don’t engage with you at all, I just force you to do something. When you have one desire and I have another and I force my desire on you, this is coercion.

There is no such thing in nature. Suffering forces us to change our desire, to realize it as evil, and to understand that I need something else. Therefore, it is said that there is no coercion in nature. But this is the most terrible hard compression. Don’t we see how we are built and what our life is like?

Now we are entering a very difficult final period, the period of the Mashiach. “Mashiach” from the word “Limshoch” – “to pull out.” This is the period when we will be dragged from our current stage to the next. And since it is the opposite of us, the transition will be very painful, nature will press us, and strongly.

Therefore, Kabbalah, which has been hidden for all millennia, is revealed today, to relieve this transition for us. It explains the nature of our existence in this last final state and how we should change ourselves inversely.

Kabbalah tells a person about the goal, toward what he should develop. And this goal is absolute, we will not get away from it. Therefore, it is better to take it into account.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Fire Island” 1/1/10

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Question: Why is it forbidden to be related to the “conquered nations”?

Answer: Because you conquered them, they are subordinate to you, they do not have freewill. Of course, you can do whatever you want with them. But know that they will not forget and will always be against you.

Question: So they cannot be corrected?

Answer: No, correction happens if they live together with you, imbued with your ideas, your ideals. They are circumcised and in the third generation they can become equal to you. Even more, they can be very high—like the whole family of King David.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/27/21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic: “Love for the Creator”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 90

Selected Highlights

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 12/12/21

America is deeply divided, split in half between the political left and right. It is particularly alarming when such polarization blinds American Jews to antisemitism and makes them oblivious to it if the hatred is coming from a political sphere that they concur with. That is exactly what is happening now and which may bring dangerous consequences in the future.

In a rare speech, Michael Bloomberg, the Jewish-American billionaire and former New York Mayor, recently called on U.S. Jews to refrain from partisanship and open their eyes to “antisemitic violence that is deeply unsettling,” and coming from all sides. The hatred is manifested as physical violence against Jews, damage to synagogues and subversive conspiracies on social media.

“When faced with these kinds of attacks, we like to imagine that our community will naturally put aside its differences and stand together in solidarity,” Bloomberg said. “Yet history records that the opposite is often the case. The Talmud teaches that the Second Temple was destroyed in part because of baseless hatred — one Jew against another.”

Does Bloomberg’s statement indicate that American Jews are beginning to understand what their role is and how they should act? I hope so. However, this is not the correct way we should come to the realization of our role in the world as Jews. Not being aware of it just prolongs the agonizing pressure of hatred towards the Jewish people.

But despite the great difficulty facing American Jews, they still dream of a promising future. If they do behave in any fraternity between them, it will only be like brothers in time of need, to preserve themselves and be saved from antisemitic pressure, not out of a tendency to fundamentally investigate their origins, role, and destiny. Jews have no sense of closeness to their roots. If not for the hatred towards them from all strata of American society, which points to them negatively as Jews, they would have long ago been totally divided.

Due to the reluctance of the Jews to know who they are and what they are and due to their evasion of Judaism and their role, the antisemitic pressure continues to increase and may easily reach a similar situation to that of Nazi Germany. There, too, it all began with petty and marginal things, until it deteriorated to the point where Jews were excluded from state law, and from outside societal laws in general. If this happened in Nazi Germany which was more developed and the Jews were an integral part of it, there is no reason why it should not happen in America.

History has repeatedly tried to teach us, Jews, that we will be really valued and appreciated not for leadership among other peoples, not for financial success and prosperous business. Rather, we need to get to a point where we know exactly what to engage in, what our mission is. Know it and implement it.

Our mission is related to the free hatred that was revealed between us in the Second Temple, but the mission did not end there. Quarrels and conflicts are the basis on which we must transcend, lovingly cover all crimes and thereby set an example to the whole world that is in constant war and needs a similar method of connection. This has always been our destiny. No other people can fulfill our role, and as long as we do not perform it, the world suffers and consequently hates us.

There is no expectation here from Bloomberg and American Jewry to become unconditionally pro-Israel and develop sympathy and closeness to Israel, but the aspiration is to be pro-Jewish. For now, the State of Israel is neither an example nor a “light unto nations”, nor does it have a tendency to approach our identity and our destiny. There is nothing in today’s Israeli society that can be boasted of, spread and shown as an example of unity and cordial connection.

Every Jew, in Israel and abroad – and in general anyone who can connect to the Jewish idea – should strive to direct himself to the values of the people of Israel, to the foundations of Judaism which are connection over separation, love over hatred, “and love your neighbor as yourself”—this is the whole Torah.
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The upper light that comes to a person in response to his efforts, which connects him and makes him suitable for spiritual action, is called a blessing. Therefore before each action, we need to come to a blessing.

Blessing means that I have reached restriction, screen, and reflected light, and therefore I can already receive direct light and work with it to the measure of my blessing. The force of bestowal I acquired within my will to receive is called a blessing.

Therefore before each action it is first of all necessary to reach a blessing: to bless the Creator for giving me the opportunity to perform an action with the intention to bestow.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/21, Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 121. She Is Like Merchant-Ships

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My new article on Linkedin “Pearl Harbor – The Painful Blow that Saved the Free World”

Eighty years ago this week, and two years into World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu. More than 2,400 American soldiers and civilians lost their lives in the attack, and nearly 1,200 were wounded. Twelve battleships were damaged or altogether submerged, and 188 airplanes were downed. The painful blow forced America to abandon its apparent neutral stance and declare war on Japan. Three days later, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on America, dragging it into the war in Europe. Were it not for this painful blow, it is more than likely that the world would have been very different from what it is today, and not for the better.

Even before America joined the war, it was providing substantial assistance to the allies. Under the Lend-Lease Act that President Roosevelt enacted in March 1941, the US provided the United Kingdom, Free France, China, and later the Soviet Union and other allied nations with food, oil, and other necessary materials between 1941 and 1945. The aid also included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry. Despite the aid, the Allies were losing the war. Were it not for America’s intervention, who knows if the Allies would have won.

We cannot overstate the contribution of the US to the liberation of Europe from Nazi occupation. By December 1941, when the Pearl Harbor attack took place, there were no armies fighting against the Nazis and their allies, except for the UK and the Soviet Union. The US not only fought against the Axis countries, but also sustained the populations of the few free countries in Europe and stocked their armies with arms, ammunition, and gas.

Japan, the aggressor in the Pearl Harbor cataclysm, went the opposite way from the United States. Until World War II, Japan was a powerful imperialist country. It is said that Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who conceived the attack, warned in advance that if the strike did not disable American military might, it would only awaken the sleeping giant and Japan would find itself on the losing end.

Some sources claim that following the raid, Yamamoto said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Whether he actually said these exact words or not, they do reflect his thoughts following the attack, as Hiroyuki Agawa’s book The Reluctant Admiral describes. As it turned out, Yamamoto was right.

However, Japan did not let the defeat go without far reaching and constructive conclusions. Following this horrible defeat, which ended with the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, Japan resolved to cease being a belligerent military power and turn its energy toward economic growth.

The trauma of the defeat in World War II sank so deep in Japan’s collective psyche that to this day, the country maintains its non-combatant policy. The bonus for its effort is the emergence of an economic superpower that is a world leader in industry and technology, whose people enjoy a standard of living that most countries can only dream of.

A Pearl Harbor incident cannot happen today. The world has changed too much for it to repeat itself. What has not changed, however, is the willingness of countries to destroy one another.

If there is a lesson to learn from Pearl Harbor, and from World War II in general, it is that war does not pay. Every aggressor in that war suffered a defeat, and every country that fought to free the world gained power and prestige.

Japan, Germany, Austria, and Italy all transformed themselves into thriving democracies. In today’s increasing international tensions, we should remember the lesson that the Axis countries learned following their defeat, and how they gained by carrying out what they had learned.
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My new article on Linkedin “Unleash the Granny Power”

A story by Rachel Nuwer published on BBC Future describes a unique, successful, and inexpensive way to tackle depression in Zimbabwe. With only twelve psychiatrists for a population of sixteen million, even the few who can afford treatment are rarely able to find a therapist within a reasonable distance.

Therefore, instead of professionals, psychiatrist Dixon Chibanda, director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative, came up with a revolutionary idea that became known as the “Friendship Bench.” Instead of looking in vain for professional help, Chibanda mused, Zimbabweans would consult with people who have warm hearts, lots of free time, a passion for heart-to-heart talks and the ability to give good advice. These people would receive some training and, thanks to their warmth and patience, Chibanda hoped, would be able to help people in distress.

Brainstorming where to find such people, Chibanda arrived at an unlikely solution: grandmothers. Chibanda and his team trained more than 400 grandmothers in talk therapy, which they now offer for free in more than 70 communities in Zimbabwe.

The idea proved to be a resounding success. “In 2017 alone,” Nuwer reports, “Friendship Bench, as the programme is called, helped over 30,000 people. The method has been empirically vetted and have [sic] been expanded to countries beyond, including the US.”

In 2016, Chibanda, in collaboration with colleagues from Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, published the results of a randomized control trial of the program’s effectiveness in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers found that after six months, the group that had seen the grandmothers had significantly fewer symptoms of depression than the group that underwent conventional treatment.

Clearly, love can go a long way in helping people. Empathy, this is all we need. More than any medicine, it heals us from within. Connecting hearts connects us to the power that sustains our world, the creative force of love. Without this power of connection, no two elements in reality would be able to connect, and life would have been impossible.

When we connect in love, we create similarity between us and the force that creates and sustains life. Just as a string on a guitar vibrates when its note is played on another string when the frequency is similar, when we create a similar feeling to the feeling that creates life—the feeling of empathy and love—we “switch on” this feeling within us.

We experience this feeling as if it came from the person next to us, but it did not. In fact, it came because the warm connection between the two of you enabled you to feel the warmth that exists around you. As long as you have not made that connection, it is as if you do not have a sensor to perceive it. But once you establish it with another person, you can feel it.

This is why loving others is so important. It is not only important to others, but even more important to the loving person. People with love in their heart are connected to the power of love and creation that exists in all of reality. No feeling is more empowering. A person who is connected to it will never feel depressed, lost, or hopeless.

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