My new article on Linkedin “It’s Been a Year of Learning”

According to the Hebrew calendar, Monday evening marks the end of the previous year and the beginning of a new one. If I had to describe the past year in a couple of sentences, I would say that it was a very good and productive year, that nature began to teach us in a way it never did before. It taught us that one force acts on all of humanity and we are all its subordinates. This realization is a very positive change that gives us some confidence for the future.

The past year taught us that we are all in one pot, “cooked” by nature’s blows. It is affecting everyone, and we all need to reflect on what is happening to us. What gives me the greatest hope is that we see how dependent we are on one another. It makes me hopeful that we will understand that we are all responsible for one another. This also brings us closer to understanding how we should relate to nature as a whole.

Although we have much more to learn from the upheavals we are going through, the blows have nevertheless been good lessons. There will be several more blows, but we will go through them and learn. Still, the sooner we realize that we are all threaded in a single fabric, and accept that in addition to our own wants, we must take the fabric into account in what we do, the better off we will all be.

The blows that we had suffered over the past year were not punishments, but lessons. Had we learned the lessons, they would have vanished. They are not nature’s response to our “sinful” past; they are its directions for our good future. Just as a parent’s admonition aims to direct a child toward a better future for the child, nature’s wrath diverts humanity from the wrong path to the right one. The sooner we reroute, the sooner nature’s “tone” toward us will change for the better.

We should not regret anything that happened in the past year. Nature is good, and all that it did, it did in order to help us. If we dwell on the past instead of correcting the future, we are certain to repeat the past mistakes and force nature to scold us once again.

Therefore, our gaze should always be forward looking; we should only focus on improving our connections with each other. If we establish good connections, we will become similar to the rest of nature—threaded like the fabric of reality, but of our own volition. If we become like nature, we will feel that nature is kind to us and our lives will be easy, calm, and good.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is modern life more complex and stressful than primitive life? Didn’t we invent technology to make life more simple?“

Egoism, which develops in us constantly and ceaselessly, forms an increasing desire in us to fill it. However, by desiring to fill it, in essence we discover that we are unable to. Everyone knows that we feel a strong appetite before eating, but our desire decreases as soon as we begin eating and we stop feeling the pleasure. This way, the pleasure or fulfillment itself neutralizes the feeling of pleasure or fulfillment. It is because the desire to fulfill oneself and the pleasure that fulfills it are two opposites.

Therefore, we will never achieve perfection if we want to fulfill ourselves directly. We want to achieve several things, but as soon as we achieve something, the pleasure disappears. Why does it disappear? It is because by receiving pleasure, we neutralize the very desire for pleasure. This is why we never feel continuous pleasure in our lives.

The pleasure can be felt only on the condition that we will separate the place of accepting the pleasure from the pleasure itself. For example, a mother wants to give something to her baby, and the more she gives to her baby, the more she herself becomes fulfilled. If we would love each other like a mother loves her baby, then we would feel pleasure to the extent of our bestowal upon others. It is possible to bestow without limitations, and by doing so, constantly fulfill ourselves. This is the principle of eternal fulfillment, and thanks to it a person can feel eternal life. It means that in altruism there is an inherent foundation for an eternal and full life, permeated with love, fulfillment and happiness, which can never happen in egoism.

When humanity will understand this and feel how much it loses in its short life, which is full of suffering, while it is possible pass to eternal life, full of pleasure—then it will begin changing itself. I hope that then our life will stop being so stressful.

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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Question: The symbols of Rosh Hashanah are certain foods at the festive table. I would like to understand where they come from. Why do we eat the head of the fish, pomegranate seeds, and carrots?

Answer: This is taken from what are called hints of the New Year. We expect it to be good, that we will succeed in the coming year in greater attainment of the Creator who will be revealed in even greater unity between us.

Therefore, we ask the Creator to provide us with correct intentions and desires, the correct way of getting closer to each other so that we can reveal Him in our unity because He is revealed in the correct connections between people.

This is what we consider the head of the year, Rosh Hashanah. That is, the most important thing is the unity between us in which the Creator is revealed. We want it to become our head. And as a symbol of this, we eat the head of a fish.

Fish, by the way, is not meat or vegetable, but something neutral, as if it does not belong to our world. It comes from water. Water represents the light of Hassadim, the light of mercy. Fish is what grows in this light of goodness.

Question: So the Kabbalists chose the head of fish for a reason?

Answer: The head is the head of the year when we want to mark that we now want to rise to a new level and advance in a new way.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States. Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur“

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New Life 1317 – Educating For Global Awareness
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and NitzahMazoz

Children need to be encouraged to not harm anyone and that, if we preserve our environment and the integrality of nature, we will gain from it. We need to tell children the extent to which we are infinitely connected to nature and emphasize the unity between the forces of nature. We educate them by giving examples and then explaining.

We should first ruin as little as possible and then see how we can better our environment. We avoid doing unnecessary things and, by the mere fact that we don’t destroy anything, we already start building. Examining and determining my attitude to everything that happens in advance, from every angle, before we act, is what we need to learn from life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1317 – Educating For Global Awareness,” 8/29/21

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On the New Year, we wish each other a good entry in the Book of Life. According to tradition, all human actions are recorded in heaven. We want to be recorded in the good book for the righteous and not in the book of the wicked. Therefore, we wish this to each other when wishing a happy New Year.

In the Rosh Hashanah prayer, there are words: “Happy is the man who does not forget You.” What should we not forget? We should not forget about love for each other and connection. After all, the main rule of the Torah is to love your neighbor as yourself. Especially on Rosh Hashanah at the beginning of the new year, we want everything to be soaked in honey, sweet, kind, and good and we wish each other a good year.

By getting closer to each other, we get closer to the upper force, to the Creator. If we failed to do this last year, then we want to come to this in the new year by getting closer to each other and through this to come closer to the Creator, which is the most important thing.

The essence of Rosh Hashanah is to crown the Creator as the only ruler in this world. It is clear that the Creator is one, single, and special force acting in all of reality, and this is a fact that does not require our consent.

Yet, on the other hand, we ourselves want to feel that the Creator is the greatest force in the world, which determines everything. We want to be His servants, who unquestioningly fulfill His orders.

We want the Creator to rule over the entire world, that is, over all our desires one hundred percent. This is what we consider to be a good new year for ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “The World” 8/24/21

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Rosh Hashanah celebration is the beginning of the new year according to the Jewish calendar. Like any other nation celebrating the new year, we hope that it will bring us a good renewal.

Rosh Hashanah is preceded by a period called Slichot (Repentance) when we make a critical analysis of everything we have done over the past year and check how well or poorly we treated people.

Judaism is built on the principle of love for one’s neighbor as for oneself, so a person is obliged to calculate whether he really behaved kindly toward all people in the world. Then he sees that he did not always comply with this principle, and therefore repents and asks for forgiveness for having offended people and committed a crime or an unintentional mistake.

After such repentance, we come to the beginning of the new year. Rosh Hashanah is a special day from which the new year begins. After all, according to the Torah the world was created five days before Rosh Hashanah. On the sixth day Adam, man, was created who, as it is known, sinned and was expelled from paradise. Therefore, we are obliged to correct Adam’s transgression, because we are all parts of his soul.

In fact, there are four beginnings of the year. The year really begins with the exit from Egypt, about which it is said: “And I will take you as My people and I will be a God unto you.” Therefore, the new year, the new period, should be counted from the moment of leaving Egypt, that is, in Pesach (Passover).

The second beginning of the year is Rosh Hashanah, which we are celebrating now. Then there will be a holiday celebrating the beginning of the year for trees—Tu biShvat (Arbor Day). There is another beginning of the year to commemorate the gift of the Torah.

It turns out that we are celebrating the four beginnings of the year. But the most traditional holiday at the beginning of the Jewish year is Rosh Hashanah.

The traditional symbols of Rosh Hashanah celebrations are apples with honey and a round challah (special bread). They express our hope for a good new year. It is also customary to eat pomegranate on the holiday, symbolizing with its seeds a large number of good deeds that we commit to do in the new year.

At the celebration, it is customary to eat a round challah since the circle is a symbol of perfection. Apples and challah are dipped in honey to celebrate a good, sweet year.

It is customary to eat the head of a fish and wish each other not to stay at the tail but to be the head. The fish also represents the creature that lives in the water and water symbolizes mercy, Hesed. The child at birth comes out of the mother’s waters in which he grew up.

All these symbols indicate that we are entering a new period, a new life.
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From KabTV’s “The World” 8/24/21

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Question: Does a person need to believe in himself? When he begins to study the science of Kabbalah, should he be sure that he will be able to attain the upper world and take the next steps?

Answer: If a person has questions about his fate, about the upper force, why all nature is created in this way, what it wants from him, and what is intended for him, then he must find that out no matter what.

And it doesn’t matter what else arises in front of him, just put the rest aside, dismiss it: right now I’m doing this. You must clarify the issues that concern you and then you will decide whether to go further into the study of Kabbalah or not. But in principle you should not miss this opportunity.

Question: What is confidence in the path?

Answer: It is a feeling that without figuring out my path I see that I am simply lost in this life and I have nothing to live for. I look at others and how they live, I don’t want to live like that. I have to live with a purpose, with “lightning” in my heart, and see my life path in this.

Having found this out, I will already decide what to do next. I need it. Otherwise, why do I exist? If a person has such an approach to life, one must implement it.

Question: The word “confidence” has a correlation with the word “faith,” but at the same time, as far as I understand, a person should not believe in anything just like that. He should be sure to clarify exactly what is most important.

Answer: You do not have to believe in anything or succumb to any arguments of others. You need to go only in unison with your opinion, read books that talk directly to your heart, and thus move forward.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/19/21

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Zohar for All, Lech Lecha, Item 101: In the middle of the garden is a pillar that is formed with all the colors. When that Ruach wishes to rise to the world of Atzilut, it undresses that clothing of the air of the Garden of Eden and goes into the pillar, rising up to the place from which it came out, to the Nukva de Atzilut, as it is written, “And the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

The middle line, which arises upon the symbiosis, upon the correct connection, of the male and female principles, is the pillar that rises from the lower world to the upper world.

This pillar consists of three lines that seem to intertwine, resembling a twisted column or the spiral of a DNA molecule.

Question: And why does it rise intertwined and not straight?

Answer: Because one quality constantly prevails over the other. It should be so that they always seem to interact with each other in various combinations, each manifesting itself at the expense of the other. We cannot feel one thing without comparing it with another.

Therefore, intertwining in such an alternate combination of who is bigger, who is smaller, in what qualities, they eventually carry us forward, lift us up into the world of Atzilut.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #18

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Question: If I choose the path of light, how is this reflected on people who follow the path of suffering?

Answer: Every person who chooses the path of light becomes its conductor into our world. Our world receives great nourishments, lights, and then more people subconsciously yearn for this path.

So, each person who engages in correction helps everyone ascend. He helps people understand evil before it is embodied in matter and thus avoid problems, blows, and many wars.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 7/14/19

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Zohar for All, Lech Lecha, Item 99: The Ruach is what sustains the Nefesh in this world, extending the abundance of life and giving to the Nefesh. It is the middle of three degrees… .

Despite the fact that a person has risen from the first degree of Nefesh to the next, Ruach, the first degree is preserved in him.

He begins to understand even more what he went through. Just like today: we are adults, but when we remember our childhood, we can better understand it from our current level, understand why our parents treated us like they did, why we reacted to everything in a certain way.

It is the same here, from the level of Ruach, from the second degree, you better understand the level of Nefesh, and it does not disappear but complements the next level.

Question: Why do I need to know something that has already passed?

Answer: So that you understand how the upper treated you and how he raised you. Based on this, you should become more and more like Him.

Everything that has happened at the previous level of Nefesh you now evaluate differently from the level of Ruach. And therefore, at the previous level, you already have not the light from the level of Nefesh, but the light from the level of Ruach. Moving from the first to the second level, you turn from a baby into a child. In other words, the baby that was in you seemingly rises to the second degree and achieves the degree of child, that is, you become more aware.

It does not feel that way in our world. In the upper world where spiritual ascent is based on attainment, there is a constant accumulation of previous degrees. And they all rise and are added to the very last degree.

Thus, we start to understand all previous degrees, we start to justify the Creator, His actions, our history, our actions, and we are called righteous.

And I can reach the degree of righteous only by passing absolutely all the degrees and checking how the Creator treated me. And when I look at all the previous degrees from the last one, I really justify Him.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #18

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