My new article on Linkedin “Virtual High Holidays and What They Mean”

Now that Covid-19 has imposed social distancing on us, many establishments that rely on physical attendance have a problem. Among them are shuls. According to a story on Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), “The pandemic’s first High Holiday season has synagogues wondering: Will people pay dues?” This is a very good question, and it remains to see how Jewish establishments such as synagogues and JCCs will cope with the absence of income from participants who come to attend services and activities.

If only those who can afford the hefty entry fees may pray to God inside the shul, and if only those who pray by “our prayer book” are allowed to join the service, and the rest are told to find their own kind, then we are an example of sinaat hinam (unfounded hatred), the very cause of our exile and dispersion. If we hate our brethren, we do not deserve to congregate.

But to me, the more interesting point is the message behind the prohibition to congregate. I think that any Jew who believes in God should ask, “What is God trying to tell us by not letting us congregate on the holiest day of the year? When have Jews not been able to congregate on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)? Probably only during the Holocaust and under totalitarian or antisemitic regimes. Does He not want our prayers? How can we atone for our sins if we can’t congregate for the Yom Kippur services?”

In my view, there is indeed a message here. We are unworthy of servicing God because we are untrue to the fundamental tenet of our Torah: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If only those who can afford the hefty entry fees may pray to God inside the shul, and if only those who pray by “our prayer book” are allowed to join the service, and the rest are told to find their own kind, then we are an example of sinaat hinam (unfounded hatred), the very cause of our exile and dispersion. If we hate our brethren, we do not deserve to congregate.

I think that this year is very special. This year, we truly have an opportunity to contemplate our Jewishness, to reflect on what it means to be a Jew, on why we were told to be “a light unto nations” and what this means. And I think we should start from the basics, from unity and mutual responsibility. Before we learn to recite from the prayer book, let’s learn to pray for one another, let’s be a role model of unity rather than an example of division.

Today is a time of tectonic changes. Judaism, too, will have to change. Unless we return to our core values of love of others and mutual responsibility, Judaism as we know it will vanish.

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Comment: American psychologist Abraham Maslow, author of the well-known hierarchy of human needs, asserted that a teacher or culture does not create a person or instill the ability to love or be loved, to philosophize, create symbols, or create. But they do provide an opportunity, and helps, what exists in the embryo to become real and actual.

Answer: Indeed, the acceleration of personality development depends on the environment.

The importance of the environment is very great because if we choose the right environment and connect with it, this will radically change our destiny. Through communication with the environment, we determine the methods and speed of passage of various states.

Question: Signs of personal growth, as psychologists write, are an increase in the ability to analyze, see the connections of events and phenomena, and understand other people. This is inner freedom and independence, a manifestation of responsibility.

How else can you identify these signs?

Answer: Signs of personal growth are manifested in a person as he or she realizes the importance of the environment. This is most important. In addition to what we have and develop in a natural way, the only parameter that we can change by ourselves is the environment.

Question: Consciousness of responsibility for one’s life is one of the main signs of personal growth. When should a person say that only he or she is responsible for what is happening to him or her and when to transfer his or her responsibility to nature, to higher forces?

Answer: Being completely within a certain environment and giving yourself to it, we begin to feel through this connection what we receive through our efforts with respect to the environment, and what the environment gives us without our efforts. This is how we begin to share the impact on ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “Management Skills” 6/25/20

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Question: Where in the body is the spark of the soul? How can I feel that it is really inside me?

Answer: The spark is not in a person’s body. There is no such place in the body that you can cut and remove from it.

It is a spiritual force that is not in the corporeal body. Even if your body ceases to exist, the spark will still remain and will acquire a new corporeal body. It is the spiritual gene that exists permanently and is passed on from one life to the next. The only thing that changes is its corporeal carrier.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/16/18

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Lesson on the Topic of “The Mutual Guarantee” 

Lesson on the Topic of “Love Covers All Transgressions” 

Bnei Baruch As a State of Transition

Selected Highlights

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The middle line in relationships can fill conflicts with new meaning: when the fire of hatred is burning, let’s forge unity out of it together!

The desire to achieve a mutual guarantee brings us to the Creator, for only He can unite us. The Creator has the upper light—the only force capable of giving us the sensation of a mutual guarantee, or connection. As we build a mutual guarantee, we begin to feel just how much we miss the Creator.

By assembling our individual souls into the soul of Adam, we are called the Creator’s partners and sons of Adam (Bnei Adam). This work turns us into sons of Adam, for we work jointly with the Creator to build a vessel after His likeness.

This is a puzzle of a billion pieces that are constantly changing. We realize that “it is not up to us to complete this work,” yet “we cannot be free of it.” All that is required of me is to take part.

Man’s work consists in reconnecting all the broken pieces of the soul of Adam. The Creator had purposefully shattered them to give us the opportunity to put them back together and see the ways in which they match. Until we complete this puzzle and become a single whole.
From Twitter, 8/27/20

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New Life 1271 – Social Rules In The New World
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Human beings cannot survive without social interaction. Loneliness is more harmful to humans than illness. The human soul can only develop in connection with others through mutual giving and receiving. We are all emotionally interdependent parts of one system called Adam HaRishon. Animals only require food, whereas human lack and deficiency is boundless. We must recognize the evil and hatred in this unlimited egoistic abyss so we will demand to be reunited. We need to learn to rise above the hatred and treat others as ourselves because life exists in the connection between us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1271 – Social Rules In The New World,” 7/27/20

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What is the difference between our time and all the previous periods of development that have passed on the Earth? We always tried to improve our condition and for this we forced nature to change for us, adjusting it to our needs. We did not want to change ourselves, but sought to change the world, considering ourselves the masters of nature.

We grew up this way and for this we developed science, techniques, and technology in order to change the world around us for our immediate benefits, instead of changing ourselves inside. But today we have come to a completely new state. Nature wants us to change ourselves in accordance with it, instead of getting comfortable within it.

Nature did not demand us to change ourselves before, only to adapt to the conditions set, like animals. This is how the inanimate world, plants and animals exist; they take advantage of everything in the environment to provide themselves with the most comfortable conditions.

But all this is in the past, and now we are entering a new era. Humanity does not yet realize this, but the science of Kabbalah allows us to perceive this and begin to see. Nature, the upper force, demands humans begin to change to match it. Just like in raising children, at first we do not demand anything from them. The main thing for the child is to grow up, to gain more weight, to understand more, and to know how to get settled in the environment.

But then we begin to gradually demand from children to understand what is happening, for mutual contact with the environment, and integral connection. That is, the human must reckon with nature now. Nature demands the correct development and ever greater mutuality from us. Maybe we can finally understand this and start changing ourselves.

The first congress we hold in this new era must be imbued with the spirit of the last generation, the new state. Nature does not just push us to adapt to its conditions, it demands us to make internal changes, and not due to techniques and technologies.

Our inner nature needs to be corrected. And correction is possible only through uniting, and this is what distinguishes a human from inanimate matter, plants, and animals. A person can become a part of integral nature only if he corrects his egoism.

The inanimate, plant, and animal levels act according to natural instincts. But people should study their desire to enjoy and try to bring it to harmony with nature, changing it from receiving into bestowal. Only after that will we achieve the correct connection with all levels of nature.

This is the peculiarity of the new period humanity is now entering. And this is why all attempts to return to the old lifestyle will not be crowned with success. On the contrary, we will get blows every time we try to reverse and go back. These blows will teach us and show us a new direction. Being closer to nature means achieving an integral connection, and this is the only way to come to a good state.

Otherwise nothing will help. We hope that the coronavirus sweeps over us like a tsunami wave and returns back to the sea, letting us get back to our former life. But it won’t. On the contrary, there will be wave after wave. Whenever it seems to us that we can get back to the old lifestyle, we will immediately be covered with the next wave, which will make us think not about the past, but about the future. And uniting is the only direction to the future.

The period of childhood, when nature raised us with gentle spanking, like little children, is over. The children have become adults, and it’s time to figure out what to do. Only through the connection between hearts, not through devices, humans can connect with nature and feel a new life in this new connection. This is a real revolution, both spiritual and material.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/20,“The Last Generation: from the Old World to the New World” (Preparation for the Virtual Convention “A New World” 2020)

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Remark: The fetus in the mother’s womb, as a rule, is under her care, love, and constantly in this environment. However, genetic scientists have found that it not only grows in love, but it itself also loves.

Scientists say, “If the mother suddenly gets sick and something happens to her, some kind of hormone is developed in the fetus, which it sends to cure the mother.” There is such a process of love.

My Comment: If they care, if they depend on each other, then naturally there is feedback.

The fetus is always trying to do everything in its power to annul itself before the mother, and by this it helps her to control it. On the other hand, the mother and the fetus send signals to each other every minute about how much they are in mutual love, consent, support, and how much they need each other. All the time! This circulation of feelings between them gives strength to the development of the fetus.

Question: Does it mean that the mother is constantly being renewed and the fetus is growing? The renewal of a woman during pregnancy—is this mutual love, the energy that enters?

Answer: Yes. The fact is that the fetus gives her so much upper, spiritual forces that almost everything is renewed because of the spiritual structure in which she exists like the Creator in regards to the creation.

Question: Is the play of the fetus in the mother and the mother like the Creator and creation?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Can we reach such a state when we are inside the Creator?

Answer: We have to do this!

Question: What is it to be inside the Creator?

Answer: To be inside the Creator means to feel not yourself, but Him. That is, I annul myself completely. In the fact that I annul myself, in every parameter of my annulment, I feel His attitude to me.

Question: When you say, “I annul myself,” does this mean that my thoughts, my actions, and my behavior are in Him? He leads and I kind of give myself to Him, “Lead me.”

Answer: Yes. Absolutely. I do not even check anything in any way, I completely annul myself in advance.

Question: Can a person reach such a state?

Answer: Everyone must do it. The coronavirus will help us in this.

Question: What does it lead us to now from this point of view?

Answer: To annulling ourselves. Only if I annul myself before society, and so each of us, then society can recover and not infect each other. Through this we will come.

Question: So, do I not dispute anything? I am told to stay at home—I stay at home, to wear masks—I wear a mask, and so on.

Answer: Moreover, I think that by doing this, I do not infect others. I follow all the instructions to avoid infecting others. I think about them.

Imagine doing that. See how much the world will change. This is a different intention.

Question: Does it mean that the main idea is that I do not infect others? Does this mean that you already are quietly within the Creator?

Answer: You are not yet part of Him, but you are no longer opposite to Him. It is like Hillel said, “Do not do unto others what is hateful to you.” Then “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is already the next stage.

Question: What in this case will be “Love your neighbor as yourself”?

Answer: Make sure that he is healthy. Imagine that you are healthy and he is sick, and you give him blood, everything he needs.

Question: Do you give him everything you have? Is this “love thy neighbor as yourself”? At this moment, do you not think about yourself at all?

Answer: In no way. Then you are cured and he is cured.

Question: Don’t I even ask for his smile or some kind of “thank you”?

Answer: What are you talking about?! This is already a reward!

Question: No reward at all?

Answer: No. Nothing.

Question: Can a person reach this point?

Answer: A person can reach this and be grateful that he has this opportunity.

Question: Not to ask anything for myself and just to give everything?

Answer: Yes. It is not that far away; we can understand that.

Question: We can understand. But can we do this or not?

Answer: Slowly. Gradually, with the support of society.

Question: Do you think that is what the virus came for, to move us closer to this?

Answer: Precisely for this. Look what it is doing. This is the first blow to all of humanity in our time.

Remark: Is this the way to “Do not do unto others what is hateful to you,” then to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and then one single whole?

Answer: Yes. One humanity with one Creator. It all will be fast.

Question: Will you and I see this?

Answer: I think so, yes. I even have confidence.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/6/20

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What 90%  of the World’s Population Should Do

Question: Scientists have calculated that 40% of diseases are caused not by viruses or physical ailments, but by mental stress. Today millions of people are sitting at home, and this naturally leads to stress. Many people say that the damage from this is much greater than from some kind of virus. What do you think about that?

Answer: I believe that a person needs to be corrected. There is no point in counting whether it is so or not. A person must understand that he lives in an integral society, inside a ball. Inanimate, vegetative, animate, and most importantly, human nature affects him, and he must be in homeostasis, in balance, with them. And this does not happen.

A person wants to receive everything from the world around him, give nothing in return, or, in extreme cases, give only as much as is required of him. This is the problem.

Today we are in conditions that will force us to do something. Indeed, in order to provide us with everything we need, only 10% of the population must work; I emphasize—to provide the necessary!

And the remaining 90% of the people also need to be fed and taken care of. But they don’t need to work physically, they don’t need to earn any material value. They must transform society, humanity; make them kind and interconnected. They need to engage in self-education and training of others. Then we will have a harmonious society.

Question: What does it mean “a person must give”? You say: homeostasis means that a person takes something from nature and has to give something to it. What exactly?

Answer: Good fellowship. We don’t need anything else.

Question: Was there a period in the history of mankind that exemplifies good fellowship?

Answer: No, there was not.

Question: Even during the primitive communal system?

Answer: There are primitive systems even now, for example, in Africa, in Polynesia. But this is not a society, but a small commune.
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From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 5/14/20

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