Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #4, “What Is the Reason for the Heaviness One Feels When Annulling Before the Creator in the Work?”
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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparing to Attack at the Convention”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam: “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 50
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Selected Highlights
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 22/9/21
Tomorrow, Google will celebrate 23. In just 23 years, Google has managed to change the way we do so many things that the list is too long to remember. But perhaps Google’s first revolution was the way we gather information. It is with good reason that we tell people “Google it!” in order to find out something. You would think that making knowledge so accessible to everyone would make the world a better place, but reality has proven otherwise. Knowledge, we have learned the hard way, is not the same as wisdom.
Knowledge is the accumulation of information; wisdom is the ability to use it correctly, which is what really counts.
It is great that we can find all the information we need so quickly. However, although information is so easily accessible, we are not happier now than we were 23 years ago. By all accounts, we are more depressed, anxious, violent, and generally more miserable.
Why are we so miserable? We misuse the information that we gather with such ease. Without knowing how to use what we know correctly, the more we know, the more miserable we feel.
The benefit from Google’s success in making knowledge readily available is that it shows us what our world really looks like. It shows us what humans do to one another and to nature, and that humanity is only growing meaner and more vicious.
If we want to be happy, we must use this information wisely. What we know about ourselves must prompt us to seek to change ourselves, to change our very nature, which makes us harm each other so readily. We clearly cannot help ourselves.
Now it is time to shift to the next level of learning, to use what we know with wisdom and make our world a better place. To do that, we should not seek external changes, which will only distract us from the crux of the problem. No, we should look within, at our own motivations for the things we do and say.
Alone, we will not be able to change our nature from the nastiness within us and become caring and compassionate. Together, there is no end to what we can achieve. Indeed, if we support each other, we can even turn ourselves into completely different human beings: kind, caring, and connected.
Everything we learn from Google or from any other source should go toward improving ourselves. There is no other problem in the world but human nature. It is our own vile disposition that tells us to look elsewhere, but it’s a decoy; we should not be tempted. The sooner we learn it, the sooner we will know how to distinguish between knowledge and wisdom, and how to use knowledge wisely—for the common good, and for our own.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #3, “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”
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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparing to Attack at the Convention”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam: “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 48
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My new article on Linkedin “Sukkot: A Covering of Peace for the Entire World”
The holiday of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) is an important and joyful tradition which represents a spiritual ascent. The true meaning of this festival is to build a new reality of mutual understanding and support—a sukkah (hut) of peace—through the positive force we generate through our cohesion.
Today—when disunity is the common denominator among families, within societies, between countries—the principle of this celebration is particularly relevant.
This festivity is also called the “Feast of Harvest,” because it celebrates the annual gathering of the harvest. As it is written, “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you gather in the produce of the land, you shall celebrate the festival of the Lord for a seven day period.” (Leviticus 23:39)
From a spiritual perspective, Sukkot symbolizes a beautiful process of inner change. It is customary to celebrate this holiday in a temporary structure built specifically for this period, the sukkah. Its roof, called schach, must be made of the “waste of barn and winery.”
This waste represents the things we toss aside and rate as less essential. We raise values such as giving, caring, empathy, solidarity, mutual responsibility above our heads as the most precious and important attributes there are, like a sheltering roof to shade us from the burning sun. As it is mentioned in the Song of Songs: “I sat down under his shadow with great delight…”
Making the roof specifically from those usually discarded elements into the covering of the festive hut means we have the intention to invert our values and transform ourselves from self-centered individuals into caring and empathetic human beings. It seems that today these ideals are precisely what we need in order to mitigate the raging anger that has spread throughout our daily lives.
Sukkot is a call to exit our comfortable egoistic “home,” meaning our self-love, and to build a new structure, a sukkah, as a symbol of the new world that we can create if we acquire the qualities of bestowal and brotherhood, the qualities most important for creating a solid and sustainable society from which everyone will benefit.
What stands in the way of us creating a good life for all, including ourselves? It is none other than the human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others. As part of humanity’s natural evolution, the ego has grown to dreadful proportions, while nature expects us to keep its basic law of balance between all its elements: still, vegetative, animate, and human.
The harsh conditions humanity is enduring with a global pandemic, climate imbalances, and worldwide disruptions, are nature’s attempts to reverse our state of separation and bring our hearts closer to one another. Such states call for the building of a true sukkah of love and unity that will cover all of humanity for a good future. The sooner we comprehend the lesson nature is teaching us, the sooner we can transform our fleeting and fragile life into one that is positive, stable, and peaceful.
We, as Jewish people, must be an example of cohesion and lead the way for others to follow, gathering the whole world beneath one big thatch-covering where we will be united as one. When this comes to pass, the temporary dwelling of the sukkah will be completed as the common space we make for each other within our hearts, ensuring humanity a healthy life and happy coexistence under one global roof.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Everything Is Obtained by the Power of Prayer”
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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My new article on Linkedin “Where Is Greta Thunberg?”
It seems as though the world is on the fast lane toward cleaning the car industry from polluting emissions. Everyone is rushing to create clean cars, whether battery or hydrogen powered engines, and bask in their cleanness.
But the green alibi hides behind it a dirty truth: Zero emission does not mean zero pollution. Mining rare Earth materials required for zero-emissions engines, building charging stations, and the complex logistics surrounding the “clean” industries will take a heavy toll on Earth. In the end, the only ones who will gain from the “clean revolution” are the tycoons who are selling it to us, and the government officials who placate them for their own reasons.
Where is Greta Thunberg these days? Like the rest of the pawns in the battle for wealth and power, the “climate knights” have sent her back to oblivion once they finished using her. It is all power games among giant corporations, but the environment and the climate are no one’s concern.
Even if we switch to wind energy or ocean-wave energy, I don’t believe that we will gain much. We will have to pay for it elsewhere.
For this reason, I think that the crux of the problem is not emissions, but our behavior toward nature and toward our fellow human beings. Here is where we can produce positive and lasting results. If we could communicate with one another positively, we could stop the madness of excessive development that manufactures unnecessary and harmful products.
If we could slow down a bit, we wouldn’t need to burn so much fuel in order to defeat competitors in a race for wealth that makes no one happy. Only if we realize that our happiness depends on the quality of our relationships, and not on the padding of our bank accounts, we will be able to pause a little, think, and rebuild our civilization in a way that contributes to nature, to humanity, and to each of us.
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My new article on Linkedin “Selfish People Can’t Produce Unselfish Solutions”
In Europe and elsewhere, governments are paying colossal sums to big corporations to help them avert bankruptcy. Whether they call it a “rescue package” or “quantitative easing,” in the end it’s all the same: the government pays companies to stay operative.
I don’t think it will work in the long run. It may keep companies afloat for another six months or a year, but as a rule, a government, any government, cannot sustain companies that cannot sustain themselves. In the end, the situation will blow up in a blast that will be worse than what it would have happened had the government let them fall naturally.
There is more to it than that. I don’t believe that a government can do anything good for its people. Civil servants, ministers, and deputy ministers always pull their own way and have their own interests in mind. Since everyone is inherently selfish, everyone has an ulterior motive that is not for the benefit of the public.
We cannot expect selfish people to do unselfish acts; it is like asking a tiger to become vegetarian. If it goes against nature and it won’t work. Therefore, asking people whose only focus is their own career to focus on other people’s well-being is unwise, unrealistic, and will invariably fail.
Socialists, capitalists, far right, or far left, they are all immersed in egoism. It is not their fault; it is human nature, and we should adjust our expectation from our leaders.
If we want a real and lasting positive change, we must transform human nature. Since our nature is selfish to the core, changing it is the only way out of the crises that the world is falling into nowadays. We will fall deeper and deeper until we realize that the problem is not the fuel we burn, the forests we cut, the water we pollute, or the people we kill. The problem is the cause of all those harms we are inflicting on nature and on each other: our inherent self-absorption. When we start working on changing ourselves rather than demanding everything and everyone else to change, we might be able to save ourselves before it is too late.
My new article on Linkedin “Where Europe Is Going”
More and more, I have been hearing about the worsening economic situation in Europe. Friends and students from all over the continent have been telling me that life in their country is deteriorating, that it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet, and they are losing hope. I have been warning about it for quite a few years now. Nevertheless, the solution now is what it’s always been—reeducation from the self-centered attitude Europeans have endorsed to an inclusive and considerate one. This is the continent’s only way out.
Currently, there is no reason for things to get better. The reports I have been getting about rising prices of housing and goods in the Czech Republic, the migration out of Hungary in search of work, the growing inequality between inland Spain and its coastal areas, and countless other problems I have been hearing about do not even scratch the surface. In addition, the struggle of the second and third echelon countries in Europe against the affluent European countries helps neither the oppressors nor the oppressed.
European countries are at a risk of war, and the immigrants pouring into the continent are only exacerbating the situation. Now that Europe’s economy is shutting down, what will they do? Add to it the “icing on the cake,” aka “coronavirus,” and you have a very precarious and unstable situation on your hands.
I am not optimistic, but as long as there is hope, we must try to explain the only way out of the downward spiral. Europe can be saved only if people and nations stop looking only after their personal profit. In an economy where everything is interdependent, the concept of “personal profit” simply doesn’t exist. “Interdependent” and “personal” are, in a sense, an oxymoron.
No one can tell Europe what to do; they must take their lives into their own hands. However, they must take everyone’s lives into account, not just those of the wealthy countries, or they will destroy everyone’s lives. Europe needs to teach itself what it means to be considerate, to see that everyone, truly everyone, has what they need. If it is to be a common market, as it professes to be, then it must see to the common good. Otherwise, what’s the purpose of a common market in the first place?
In order to create a (truly) common market, there must be a common interest. This means that first of all, Europe must stop the influx of people from all over the world, mainly from Asia and Africa. Their interests are very different from those of Europe, and their culture has nothing in common with European culture. At the moment, Europe is unable to sustain foreigners invading it and changing its cultural and religious makeup on top of the economic and structural problems it already has.
Next, once they stop the migration influx, they must see that everyone in Europe has minimal and decent living conditions. If one part of the European market is neglected, the whole arrangement will tumble like a deck of cards.
Third, caring for everyone’s provision must be a given, just as one does not abandon a close family member. However, acting in this way requires Europe to overcome centuries of wars, conspiracies, and bad blood among the countries. We must not forget that the two world wars we’ve had so far began in Europe, and for a good reason. This is the education I was referring to in the beginning of this piece: education toward mutual responsibility, trust, and good faith.
A lasting change can only be the result of a thorough educational process. If all the countries agree to it, Europe can come out triumphant from the challenge it is facing. If, on the other hand, it lets countries opt out of mutual responsibility, or allows aliens to keep pouring in, it is doomed. It will not be long before Europe’s fate is decided one way or the other.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Jewish People Are About Quality, Not Quantity”
The Jewish people are growing. A comprehensive study conducted by researchers at the Hebrew University and recently published by the Jewish Agency reveals that despite antisemitism and other threats, the Jewish population worldwide has increased from 15.1 million last year to 15.2 million Jews today. However, the rise in the number of Jews does not represent a sign of higher strength. The potential of the people of Israel lies not in matter, in quantity, but in spirit, in the quality of our unity.
About 45 percent of all the Jews in the world reside in Israel, that’s close to 7 million. The United States, with 6 million Jews, represents the second largest Jewish community globally. In the face of growing antisemitic events in the world, we were supposed to see new waves of immigrations to Israel, but that is not the case. There is no correlation between the increase in the number of Jews on the one hand and the pressure on them on the other.
Antisemitism is hardly a factor influencing Jews to immigrate to Israel because they are already accustomed to looking for a place to hide on earth despite the fact that it is round and connected and there is literally nowhere to run to. Sooner or later they are exposed to hatred.
It always seems to the Jews that they have managed to find a safe haven, but it is only on the surface, like a child who closes his eyes and thinks the danger has passed. Jews have an innate urge to live among the nations of the world, and the possibility of living among Jews in the Land of Israel does not appeal to them.
Diaspora Jewry is not where the State of Israel can cast its hopes for the future, nor do we need to because numbers have no significance. As it is said about the people of Israel, “You are a few of all the peoples.” The might of the Jews is not measured by our numbers but by the quality of our connection.
Today we do not feel the strength of the spirit in the people of Israel because we are divided and conflicted, immersed in material and earthly struggles. When we are properly united, we create an extraordinary spiritual force. It is the quality of the relationships and connections between us that determines the intensity of that force.
The opposite happens in our current state. The Jewish People’s Policy Institute has recently warned of the erosion of the Jewish people that has intensified in the past year and is reflected both between Jews and in their relations with the rest of the world. One of the reasons for this, as the researchers suggest, is the distance of the younger generation from Israel and the weakening of their Jewish identity.
Even if there are a plethora of organizations aimed at connecting the Jews wherever they are, they are also split, arguing, divided by partisanship. We are confused in thinking that Jews can prevail when they are weakened by political polarization which has no grip in Judaism that speaks only of unification. The people of Israel are founded on the principle of being as one man in one heart. When the people are partisan, the Jewish idea is dead.
This is the only problem the people of Israel have. We do not realize how critical our connection is. Our fate depends on that because if the Jews connect above all differences, in this they bring peace within them, which is then poured out to the whole world. Judaism has only one ideology: to be as one. This is called “being with the Creator.”
We just need to drop the political discourse, the shouting over opposing opinions, and connect together above all the differences. This is the only thing that can help us strengthen the nation. We must strive for a situation where we decide not to consider anything other than a clean and authentic desire to be brothers and sisters. Think of a mother who has a million children. How does she want to see them? This is how we should behave toward each other.
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