Question: Before, almost the entire southern part of Italy survived thanks to tourism. If there is unemployment, how will people feed their families?

Answer: I understand that now many professions, positions, enterprises, and businesses will not be able to return to their previous state.

The fact is that it is necessary to enact an absolutely clear state program. This should not just be help in the form of a handout, but a deliberate involvement of the whole society in solving this problem.

It is solved by reducing the workforce that is not necessary. At least for now. It is better to send people home and give them a minimum normal income.

We must understand how to create a new society. To do this, you need to constantly conduct conversations, discussions, but not like they are conducted now on television where various government officials are invited and they grind what they need.

It is necessary to invite specialists, scientists, but not all kinds of public figures who dream of becoming prime ministers. And then we will be enlightened and see to what state we really should come. It will shine for us more and more, and I see it.

Question: You say that only state systems can solve employment problems. If this is so, then what is the point of the Kabbalist tackling the theme of the coronavirus instead of spiritual development?

Answer: I am not saying that states can solve this problem. This is a problem for society and manufacturers. Society must decide what it needs and what it does not need any more, and take on the functions that the state has taken away from it in order to manage everything.

The fact is that such laws of competition reign in governments that they are not able to solve these problems. I do not blame them because human nature has driven us into such a state.

By no means do I believe that this should be left to the governments. Maybe they can do something, at least for now, if society protests against them by organizing demonstrations and protest marches. Indeed, many firms and enterprises will not be able to return to their normal activities.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20

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Question: Now the quarantine has been relaxed, people have taken to the streets: restaurants, hairdressers, and shops in continuous consumption. Everything is the same as before, nothing has changed. So, why was the virus needed?

Answer: I think we cannot change in the first time around. But nevertheless, we started to doubt whether we might have been living incorrectly. Everything is revealed by comparison.

But the first time around, it is unlikely that we will be able to draw conclusions. Moreover, we have not yet returned to the past and analyzed what happened. We take our sitting at home as an incarceration, imprisonment.

And now, we will go back to work and gradually see that going back to the practices of consumption will manifest in us as negative. Then we will know what to do.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 5/3/20

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Question: How do we correctly unite between us, by appealing to feelings, thoughts, or logic?

Answer: It is best to turn to logic when a person knows why he should unite, that unity is a law of nature, and thus it leads one to a correct path with the whole universe, with a common integral system called the Creator.

When a person realizes this, the task of one’s existence becomes revealing this system in order to integrally find oneself in it.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/19/20

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Question: It is said that fear arises from ignorance. Are they just an irritant to come to spiritual desires?

Answer: No. There are several types of fear. In “The Introduction of The Zohar, Items 169 – 188” three types of fear and trepidation are examined in “The Commandments of the Torah, The First Commandment.” I recommend you read it.

Answer: In fact, there is no difference between material fear and spiritual fear. This all comes from the Creator, and therefore affects a person on all levels. This effect can pass through your family, relatives, children, your animal body, etc.

Question: Why does a person freeze when feeling intense fear?

Answer: Fear paralyzes, it does not allow you to move and does not allow you to act. After all, acting means making some decisions, doing something. And a man who is afraid can do nothing. Fear against all actions.

Question: If fear is so necessary for revealing the Creator, why do we need security?

Answer: In order for us to feel the need to overcome our fears.

Question: How does one correct the deafening fear of disappointing the Creator into trembling before Him?

Answer: This is corrected in the group. With the correct study of Kabbalah, such problems do not arise.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/26/20

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Question: The Netherlands has a museum of the human body. It is created so realistically that it takes the visitors’ breath away. Inside the museum, there is actually a whole city comprised of different parts of the body that you can wander through.

The visitors feel like they are tiny and moving through the corridors of an artificial human giant while watching how the blood circulates, how the digestive tract works, and the giant heart beats, how the auditory and muscular systems, vocal cords, bones, and teeth work. All this can be studied in detail and seen in action.

While traveling through the body, visitors can clearly see how harmful habits negatively affect the work of organs and systems.

What transformations occur inside a person when he becomes acquainted with the world around him and the system of connections in it? Does it somehow change his inner attitude to the world, to himself?

Answer: It can change, of course,

Question: Why does this impression, this inspiration, not act in a person for the long term, so that at every moment of time he would remember the system of connections?

Answer: Does he enjoy it or not? If he does not enjoy it, he forgets immediately. If he enjoys it, it remains to the extent that it is pleasant to him.

Question: Is it possible to make the same simulation, the same museum of “relationships between people”? Can we create such a model?

Answer: It can be an imaginary one, but it will not teach a person anything because it is against human nature. All this will be unpleasant for him.

He will be happy to see such a beautiful picture, but not to participate in it against his egoistic nature!

Question: But if everyone treats him well, does everything for his benefit, does he not get involved in this game?

Answer: It will occupy him for some short period of time, like going to a movie.

Question: And what does it take for a person to want not only to get involved in this game, but also to change himself so that this becomes his?

Answer: To do this, he must, of course, already acquire significant life sufferings. How else will he want this? After all, this all is against our nature.

Question: When a person suffers, he always wants to run away, that’s the easiest thing. And here he has a choice to acquire something else. How does the tipping point of choice happen, when he no longer wants to run away, but wants to choose a new path?

Answer: When there is no other way. When he has to find the meaning of life, otherwise life is worth nothing. I just do not want anything other than the meaning of life! Why do I need all this? Why do I exist? Why was I born? If it bothers him very much, only to the extent of this concern, to the extent of this suffering, will he be able to change.

Question: Walking through the corridors of such a museum, which are also being created in Toronto, and New York, will a person have no thoughts about the meaning of life if he is suffering?

Answer: Absolutely not! This is about physiology, not about the inner world of a person. About his innards, but not about his inner world.

Question: Where does the question about the meaning of life arise?

Answer: It is not inside a person. Not in the heart, not in the mind. It is in the soul. And the soul is not inside a person. It is next to him.

Question: How does the awakening of this question happen within a person?

Answer: The soul makes such a suggestion to the brain of a person that he begins to think about it.

Question: What is the soul?

Answer: The soul is the question about the meaning of life. For now. Later it will develop from this question.

Question: And what will it become?

Answer: It will become a capacity, in which one will begin attaining the meaning of life. The desire to attain the meaning of life is called the soul, the initial state of the soul.

Then this desire begins to fill with all kinds of spiritual attainments, spiritual—about the meaning of life. And thus, it develops.

A person begins to ask more intelligent questions, more eternal, more elevated, and receives answers to them. This is the development of the soul.

Comment: The attainment of the meaning of life is different for everyone.

My Response: And we cannot compare. How can I pull out my soul and place it in you so that you could compare two souls there?

Question: A person has a growing desire for the meaning of life. This is what we call the soul. Everyone has their own desire, which is not like the others. Then what happens to these desires? Do they connect with each other?

Answer: They do not connect. Why would they connect?

Comment: They say that there is one big soul for everyone.

My Response: This connection is different when we have one common goal. When we need to achieve one common goal, the souls connect in order to reach the common goal. But they connect with each other through opposition.

Question: Why do they oppose each other?

Answer: In order not to annul themselves. And once they connect, we have one common whole consisting of many parts.

Question: How do they connect?

Answer: Through the qualities of bestowal and love.

Question: And what do these connected desires discover about the meaning of life?

Answer: They discover the interaction with each other above common egoism.

Question: Is there some kind of single definition of this interaction between them above the qualities?

Answer: It is the common soul, Adam. The common network of connections is called “Adam” from the words “similar to the Creator.”

Question: Do people, by building all these systems of connections, subconsciously want to reach the upper network of connections?

Answer: Yes. The soul is yearning for this.
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From KabTV’s “News With Michael Laitman,” 3/3/20

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Question: How can we use the sense of fear in a productive way?

Answer: Kabbalah explains that the main concern of a person should be to put himself against the Creator, because everything that happens to us, in us, and around us comes from the Creator.

If I try to feel that I am in connection with the Creator all the time, and not in a direct two-way connection I—to Him and He—to me, but in the feeling that He acts on me and everything that comes to me every moment in feelings, in the mind, in thoughts, and in memory, comes from Him, then I will position myself more or less correctly.

The question arises: if I am in a state where I am all in the Creator, is there any place for fear, anxiety, and expectation of something bad?

Therefore, the problem is not that I am in fear, but that the Creator is concealed from me. If the Creator were open to me, I would feel that I am in Him—in good, eternal, perfect, unique, governing, organizing, and defining the whole world. If I felt like that, then I would have no fears, no worries, and no doubts.

Therefore, the whole problem lies in the concealment of the Creator, which is the cause of all our troubles, and vice versa, His disclosure is the source of all our joys.

Question: Why did the Creator create such motivation as fear?

Answer: In order for us to draw Him to ourselves all the time, to try to reveal Him.

Question: How do we interact with fear of the Creator?

Answer: We turn to Him and work with Him in order to remove this fear. If the Creator manifests Himself, then fear disappears. Even if we simply come closer to Him, and remember that everything is from Him, then fear already disappears.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/26/20

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Question: You say that nature is an integral system and that everything in it is built on love. But we know from history that everything in nature is built on competition, survival, and suppression of one’s neighbor. How would you comment on this?

Answer: It is very simple. Each of us consists of two parts: animate and human—in one form. In the animate form, we submit to the general evolutionary development and nothing can be done about it.

And the human in us should be above competition, only in mutual assistance. Kabbalah teaches how to create a human society from us animals. This is the only way we can survive. Otherwise, we will simply disappear—even as animals.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 4/12/20

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New Life 1204 – Trust
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Today, a general crisis in trust exists in humanity because the ego is constantly growing and everyone wants to exploit one another. We must recognize this evil in order to achieve a connection according to the purpose of creation. Without trust between us, everything will come to a stagnant standstill, like another ice age. No one will want to communicate with others, even with cell phones.
Life is built upon mutual giving and receiving. When we trust others, we develop the spiritual characteristics of faith, bestowal, and love. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to get closer, how to function as different organs in a single body, and to discover the glue that connects us within the depths of nature.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1204 – Trust,” 1/30/20

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My new article on Linkedin “How Practical Is Mutual Responsibility?”

Not long ago, a comment on one of my posts stated that adapting society to the harmonious and integral nature we live in is impractical. At the moment, it is indeed impractical since people see no reason to be harmonious with others. For as long as we can, our self-centered nature will try to maintain its self-centered mindset.

But reality has changed, and the sooner we realize it, the better for all of us. The virus will force us to think about each other. Each of us can transmit it to everyone around us. Even if we aren’t sick, it doesn’t mean we’re not carriers, and therefore should be careful not to transmit it to others. In this way, the virus is teaching us to think about each other, to be considerate, even if not of our own volition or affection to others.

Since the virus isn’t going away in the foreseeable future, we will have to adopt the approach of mutual responsibility. Inadvertently, we will find ourselves in a society that abides by different rules: rules of a harmonious, integral society. We will simply have no choice; our lives will depend on it.

It may be a few months or a few years from now, but a society of mutual responsibility and solidarity will not only be practical and realistic, it will be the only option for humanity since it will be the only way to deal successfully with COVID-19 or with all the crises down the road.

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Medium published my new article “Surfing the Pandemic Waves”

Public discourse now speaks of a second wave of COVID-19 when the first one is far from over. Just when we thought the epidemic was under control, the opening of the economy has brought new contagion outbreaks around the world. What does this portend for the future? We may try to avoid flip-flopping policies on how to tackle the pandemic and its consequences, but the truth is that now we only see the tip of the iceberg of what lies in store. What we do know for certain is that our way of life will change forever. The most important thing for us to understand is that nature is driving us to new forms of connection among us since we all influence and depend on one another, just as the waves of coronavirus infection illustrate.

“The more we unite through the heart and soul, and the more we understand nature’s guidance today, our anxiety about the future will decrease. Our consciousness will be enlarged and we will begin to discover a higher dimension which nurtures us so wisely, the force of nature. This is a force whose signature characteristic is love and pure giving.”

The coronavirus will not quickly disappear from among us. It may remain for years though it may change its form. This is why it is imperative that we shape society and the economy in accord with the emerging reality. Experts warn that within a few months we will be in the deepest recession since WWII. Businesses will collapse, people’s savings will run dry and they will be unable to return loans, pay off mortgages, or pay rent. The unequivocal signs are already here. Therefore, we need to revolutionize our priorities.

Countries must invest their resources in the vital industries that can ensure that every person’s basic needs are met at a reasonable level. Public budgets should secure funds for this first and foremost on the list of priorities and not squander resources in other areas because of pressure from once powerful stakeholders. Luxury industries will certainly suffer a severe blow due to the economic crisis. It would be pointless to attempt to recuperate them because their products will have very little demand.

Thought must precede action: Tomorrow’s humanity will need a much calmer lifestyle, free from senseless running back and forth, one centered around the essentials instead of the superfluous. People will need to invest primarily in building deep ties among them to discover in them the taste of life. Our good future lies in research and development of connections and love among all people, and this enterprise will be our exit to a new world.

Until we reach these desired human connection, we must cleanse ourselves of non-vital businesses which only increase the destructive competition among people, suck out precious resources from nature, and pollute the air, earth, and sea.

The era of coronavirus is peeling away the non-vital husks of an outdated way of life in an intelligent manner. Gradually, it will slim the economy to healthy and sustainable dimensions and the non-essential fat will fall away.

Governments will have to think outside the box in order to provide employment and livelihood to the millions who will be ejected from the labor market. The best solution will be to provide the citizens with universal income conditional upon active participation in social education and community building.

This escape route through education will offer a gateway to a new understanding in humanity about the changes taking place in this special era and what they mean in the development of man, society, and the world, as well as the kind of new relationships that must be established among people. Those who study will also work a few hours in areas which build community and society.

The happiest and healthiest possible life evolves out of caring for others, just like a mother who is always concerned about her children and finds an incomparable sense of satisfaction and vitality in providing this care. Although seemingly contradictory to the notions of social distancing, the era of corona is actually here to teach us how to correctly approach each other, — the true form of connection at the internal level from heart to heart, and how to avoid hurting each other.

The more we unite through the heart and soul, and the more we understand nature’s guidance today, our anxiety about the future will decrease. Our consciousness will be enlarged and we will begin to discover a higher dimension which nurtures us so wisely, the force of nature. This is a force whose signature characteristic is love and pure giving.

Therefore, the coronavirus is not just an epidemic meant to frustrate and destroy, but an evolutionary riddle for us to solve together. Our success will depend on our unity, not only to ride the wave of the pandemic, but to reach the crest of the wave for a healthy and secure future.
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