In the News (The Guardian): “Several Indian states are considering implementing a controversial two-child policy and incentivising sterilisation as a means of population control.

“The state of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with a population larger than Brazil, has announced draft legislation which would see anyone with more than two children denied state benefits, subsidies and government jobs. After a family has two children, there will also be incentives if one of the parents undergoes voluntary sterilisation.”

Question: Do you think such initiatives are correct?

Answer: We must not sterilize people like animals. People need to figure out themselves how to regulate the number of children they will have and why they do it.

Question: Are you suggesting a serious educational process?

Answer: Nothing will work without it, not laws or coercion, only creating a framework that a family would be proud of the fact that it brings up not a large number of children but rather special children.

Question: This revolution in thinking must take place by providing them with education?

Answer: Of course! And it will happen anyway. Otherwise, look at what kind of country it is! I was in India, I was in China, and I saw a big difference between people.

Question: Should it be carried out not by a bill on limiting the number of children, but by constant, structured education?

Answer: Yes.

Question: It is interesting that in Europe everything is the opposite, they have to subsidize families to have children. Yet, in countries like Africa and India, families must be subsidized to have fewer children. Why is this happening? What is this different way of thinking in people?

Answer: It is all based on religious beliefs and principles.

Question: Why does a highly educated person, let’s say, with three or four degrees, want fewer children?

Answer: He wants quality instead of quantity. He understands that the main thing is quality. He wants his descendants to be educated, to understand, know how, what, what they live for, create the right environment around them, and put their children on their feet in turn.

Question: And if people would voluntarily have many children and give them good education, is this a cultural feature? Do they do this consciously? Do you welcome this?

Answer: Of course.

Comment: Our people always had many children.

My Response: First of all, it was a small nation. Second, one did not replace the other. People were encouraged to have a large number of children, but every person, every child, at least every boy, had a teacher who educated him. The family has always been proud of the fact that its children, sons, as a rule, were educated. “Look how many pages he knows by heart!” And so on.

That is, it was like a highest ideal, a reward, approval. Everyone aspired for a child to become a sage.

They do not have that there.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/15/21

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“We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” (Native American Proverb)

This should force you to prepare everything for the next generation. This is why you live in the present generation. We live to prepare the ground for the next generation. In every sense.

Question: Why don’t we feel this way? And we taint…

Answer: Our egoism obscures this elementary truth from us.
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From KabTV”s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/15/21

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Comment: German scholar Johann Reuchlin wrote On the Art of the Kabbalah: (De Arte Cabalistica) in 1517. In it he devotes a section to the relation of the Pythagorean system to the Kabbalah. 

My Response: The original philosophy for everyone was Kabbalah, the science of the forces that rule the world and in the world.

From the tenth century B.C. onward, the ancient Greeks adopted this wisdom from the ancient Jews. It passed to them until they broke away from the Kabbalists and began to interpret it in their own way, believing that the Earth is inhabited by gods, and that all sorts of forces are infused into stones, animals, etc.

This was already a clear totemism, and, of course, nothing remained of Kabbalah, just as nothing remained of it in all religions that took their origin from Kabbalah and then lowered it to the level of our world and all sorts of everyday actions that exist in religions today as their customs and laws.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/21/21

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Lowliness and Subjugation” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 25

Selected Highlights

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My new article on Linkedin “Could the Middle-East Drown in Water-Wars?”

Global warming, back-to-back years of drought, and absence of investments in water saving and desalination technologies are pushing the already tense international relations in the Middle-East to the point of breakdown. If the water crisis continues, it will not be long before the arid land will be scorched by gunfire.

Iranian farmers cannot produce crops without water; the Kurds and Iran are at odds over the shifting of water lines; more than 12 million people in Syria and Iraq are losing access to water, food, and electricity; and in Syria, which is still torn by a civil war that began ten years ago, the drought this year is the worst in the past seventy years. Terror saws fear, but you can restrain it with arms. Thirst saws desperation, and nothing can stop desperate people.

Next to oxygen, water is the most vital element for survival. Without it, people will do literally anything to get it.

In a 2017 podcast, Peter Gleick, chief scientist and president emeritus of the Pacific Institute said, “Some of the earliest conflicts over water [appeared] about 25 BC in Ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.” Even now, “In the last decade or so,” continues Gleick, “there have been more and more instances of violence related to water … [which] have been what we call subnational conflicts.” The drought has not improved over the past four years since the interview. It has only worsened, and its consequences have brought the region to the point of near breakdown.

The most distressing element about this crisis is the fact that it is absolutely unnecessary. There are proven technologies that can turn deserts into oases at a very reasonable cost. Israel, once a victim of accelerated desertification, has brought the problem completely under control by constructing desalination plants. Israel has already built several such facilities abroad and is willing to help anyone who wishes to use the technology. Regrettably, the leaders in many Middle-Eastern countries consistently focus on tightening their grip on the people rather than on improving their lives.

In fact, Israel is already channeling water to Jordan as part of the 1994 peace agreement between the two countries. It is more than willing to sign such agreements with other neighboring countries, but at the moment, it does not appear as though there is openness toward the idea on the other side.

While I do not believe that Israel’s neighbors will start a war with Israel over water, it is sad that people who could have access to abundant water are denied this most necessary ingredient because of politics.

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My new article on Linkedin “The Israeli Covid Hubris”

There is a famous anecdote that once, when President Richard Nixon met with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, he confessed in a moment of candor that it was complicated governing 200 million Americans. To this, she replied, “You may have 200 million Americans to govern, but I have 6 million prime ministers to govern.” To this day, we don’t know how Nixon responded to Meir’s quip.

What we do know is that she was right. In Israel, everyone knows everything about anything.

When Covid-19 came along, the whole world panicked, and we in Israel immediately knew what to do, and we voiced our opinion to anyone who would (or would not) listen. Indeed, we are an obstinate people.

There is a reason for it. Our ancestors were fierce and strong minded individuals who left their own tribes and peoples and joined Abraham to form a new nation that united above all differences. At times, they succeeded and profound bliss had spread among them.

At other times, their adamant selves would take over and they would revert back to their old, opinionated selves. Then, fiery hatred would burst among them. However, after some time, they would remember the principle that had made them a nation—unity above divisions—and they would reaffirm their nationhood.

Today, we still have those fiery divisions, but we no longer have the times when we rise above them. Hatred has grown so intense among us that we can no longer unite above it. This is why every issue that comes along becomes an opportunity for altercation.

The only time when we do show some level of unity is during war. All Israelis feel it, and many admit that if there is anything to be thankful for when Gaza fires rockets into Israel, it is that this is the only time when we stop fighting one another.

For now, I don’t see that this will change soon. But at some point, Israelis will realize that they must unite not only because they are being bombed, but because they have a mission: to set an example of setting divisions aside, uniting above them, and building a strong nation.

Precisely the example of a nation created from strangers is what the world needs to see today, since everyone feels estranged from everyone else. When Israelis unite, they set this example, and this is all they need to do in order to solve all their problems with their neighbors and with the entire world—unite among themselves.

For now, they prefer to unite with anyone but each other. At some point, they will have no choice and they will do it. I hope this point comes soon.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can architecture better serve the social, economic, political and environmental concerns of our present and future?“

The effectiveness of architecture, as with any other art, science and technology that we have developed, depends exclusively on the intention that we apply to its use.

It is not arts, sciences or technologies themselves that are good or bad. Rather, it depends on whether their producers use them for benefit or harm.

Therefore, when we will understand that it is most beneficial to take care of our necessities, and to give everything else to society’s benefit, then we will stop excessively using architecture. Just the opposite, we will do everything incredibly effectively, realistically, and will invert other excesses to favor human society.

This is a tendency that we will witness in architecture, and generally in all spheres of human activity. If we will change the person, then architecture and other arts, sciences and technologies will also assume a different form and appearance.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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In the News (New York Times): “What will our future look like — not in a century but in a mere two decades?

“Terrifying, if you’re to believe Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli historian and author of ‘Sapiens’ and ‘Homo Deus,’ a pair of audacious books that offer a sweeping history of humankind and a forecast of what lies ahead: an age of algorithms and technology… .

“Just as the Industrial Revolution created the working class, automation could create a ‘global useless class,’ Mr. Harari said, and the political and social history of the coming decades will revolve around the hopes and fears of this new class. Disruptive technologies, which have helped bring enormous progress, could be disastrous if they get out of hand. …”

My Response: People will be replaced by machines everywhere. Today even the question is raised whether it is necessary to launch people into space. After all, 90% of the equipment in a spacecraft is necessary to support human life. What for?!

A machine will handle everything by itself. You can launch it anywhere. It will withstand any overloads, will be able to work in any circumstances, and will collect everything you need. It does not need to sleep, take tons of food with it, and take care of oxygen or anything else.

Today it is all beginning to be perceived in a completely different way. No need for these lyrics, flying somewhere, to some distant stars. A device will fly, film everything, and transmit everything.

(The Guardian): “Yuval Noah Harari examines ‘the useless class’ and a new quest for purpose

“The crucial problem isn’t creating new jobs. The crucial problem is creating new jobs that humans perform better than algorithms. Consequently, by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.”

My Response: The whole problem is in the elites that make money on these people. If the elites did not think that they constantly need more and more “pieces of paper” or gold to put somewhere, then there would be no problem getting rid of a huge number of people.

And so these people are necessary for the elite in order to earn even more. This is the whole problem: how to “make sure the wolves are fed and the sheep are safe.”

This, of course, cannot be done. So the elite’s goal is to reduce the population so that they themselves suffer no damage. I think you can already see how they are beginning to find an approach to this.
[279597]
From KabTV’s “Challenges of the 21st century” 4/24/19

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Prophets, Joshua 13:6: All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim, and all the Sidonians, I will drive them out from before the children of Israel; only divide it by lot to the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded you.

Question: What does it mean to not destroy, but rather to banish a desire?

Answer: It’s about working with intentions. Desires remain, they cannot be destroyed in any way. Above every desire, the intention must be changed.

If I stop working with some egoistic intention, then this desire dies off, it means “drive him out of this place.” It no longer feels what it can rule over. And then I start to revive it, revive it to work for the sake of bestowal.

To expel is to remove the desire itself so that there is no connection between it and the egoistic intention. And then the desire remains in a completely amorphous, suspended form, and its egoistic intention disappears.

But when the intention is corrected, then it is already possible to work with the desire again. This is called the complete conquest of the land.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/2/21

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