The Times of Israel published my new article “The Rise of Anti-Semitism in Germany and the World, and Its Solution”

“We have a Nazi problem in Dresden and have to do something about it,” said a city council member who succeeded with local lawmakers in passing an initiative to declare a “Nazi emergency.” This story is not a throwback to the 1930s in Germany, but a recent occurrence. It is a symptom of the larger problem of white supremacy spreading in major European and American cities, which raises the question: Why are Jews treated by many as a stone in humanity’s shoe? Solving this enigma is a pivotal step to finding a way to remove the uncomfortable annoyance.

But why Dresden in particular? Dresden happens to be a bastion of the far-right political party, “Alternative for Germany,” (AfD) and the birthplace of the movement PEGIDA (“Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident,” in German), which are described as anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and xenophobic.

However, anti-Semitism is certainly not limited to radical right-wing groups. It is prevalent in German society as a whole. More than 25% of Germans agree with classic anti-Jewish tropes, including that Jews have “too much power over the economy,” according to a study revealed last month by the World Jewish Congress. Over 40% said they think Jews “talk about the Holocaust too much,” yet one in four respondents also said it is possible that “something like the Holocaust could happen in Germany again.”

Hatred Against Jews in America

The first anniversary of Pittsburgh’s synagogue attack was commemorated last month. It is a vivid reminder of how hatred against Jews is much more than a matter of hate speech these days. Jew-hatred can materialize in a split second as deadly violent attacks. A man accused of plotting to blow up a Jewish temple was arrested just days ago by the FBI in Colorado. We see close parallels between events in America and Germany with the Yom Kippur attack at the Halle synagogue at the hands of a Neo-Nazi.

“This hatred is real, comes from multiple sources, and is growing,” said the American Jewish Committee’s CEO, David Harris, in response to a recent survey conducted by the Jewish organization which revealed that nearly 9 of 10 American Jews now consider anti-Semitism a problem in the US.

In order to combat the sharp rise in Jew-hatred in both America and worldwide, the Jewish Agency recently announced a far-reaching plan to bolster security systems in 50 Jewish institutions, such as Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers in 24 countries this year in response to global requests for safety support. The goal is to extend this security upgrade to include 40 countries by the end of 2020.

No Jewish Safety Until the Cause of Hatred Against Us Is Solved

Today, we discover our human society to be closed-in on all sides, trapped between global interdependence that connects us, on one hand, and competitive, egoistic interests and indifference that separates us, on the other. This is the exact juncture where anti-Semitism is rooted and where the people of Israel enter the picture.

We were established as a Jewish nation at the foot of Mount Sinai when all our members committed to unite “as one man with one heart.” Immediately thereafter, we were commanded to be “a light unto the nations,” namely to spread the light of unity throughout the world. Since we once experienced brotherly love in the bonds between us, we have the ability to once again unite above our differences and set an example for others who so desperately need such guidance. This is what makes the Jewish people unique, and this example is precisely what the world demands of us during our current times of division and rifts.

Humanity subconsciously feels that we Jews hold the key to a better life for every person on this planet. Such interdependence between the role of Jews and the fate of humanity amounts to the fact that the more we delay in actualizing our role, the more we will be hated.

The Jewish people are essentially a mini-model of humanity, a prototype for universal connection between people. The degree of connection we establish between us is destined to spread and shape the conditions for the rest of the world. When we return to brotherly love between all Jews, the demand against us that manifests as anti-Semitism will vanish.

Rav Kook summed up this essential role of Jews as follows: “The purpose of Israel is to unite the world into a single family.”

Our Life Insurance Is in Our Unity

When our enemies strike they do not ask what denomination of Judaism we belong to, or what our origin is, or whether we are right-wing or left-wing. They simply strike out against us, convinced that the world’s problems will be solved by erasing Jews off the face of the planet. This overriding force of anti-Semitism constantly resurfaces in various guises to compel us to unite during times when we become increasingly remote from being a united people.

Today, instead of exemplifying unity, we radiate divisiveness to the rest of the world. In such a state, the world will always find reasons to hate us and feel justified in trying to destroy us. The precise point upon which our prosperity depends was succinctly expressed by Samuel David Luzzatto: “The success of our nation depends only on our brotherly love, on connecting to one another as members of a single family.”

First and foremost, Jews must be a conduit to transmit an example of cohesion, mutual understanding and solidarity above differences to humanity. By providing a method for uniting above differences and divisions, we will become an enlightening force for the rest of the world. As stated in The Book of Zohar: “Just as the organs of the body cannot exist for one moment without the heart, so all nations cannot exist in the world without Israel.”

Our thoughts and efforts that draw us to unite and in turn soften critical attitudes about each other have the power to evoke a positive force between us, one capable of gradually neutralizing hatred and bringing about balance. This is the power that can protect and lead us toward a good and safe future.
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A Person Is a Reaction to the Influence of Nature

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: This name is as tangible and as close to us as though it were entirely perceived by our senses. Even little children are familiar with the word, “electricity,” as well as they are familiar with words such as bread, sugar, and so on.

Moreover, if you wish to exercise your tools of scrutiny a bit, I shall tell you that as a whole, as there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, so is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands.

It seems that everything is clear to us, but in fact, nothing is clear. We can somehow work with electricity because everything around us is the manifestation of this force. But what is this force? We do not know.

Moreover, if you wish to exercise your tools of scrutiny a bit, I shall tell you that as a whole, as there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, so is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands.

Thus, all we know about our friends and relatives in the world of action before us are nothing more than “acquaintance with actions.” These are prompted and born by the association of their encounter with our senses, which render us complete satisfaction although we have no perception whatsoever of the essence of the subject.

The fact is that we attain not the essence of any natural phenomena, such as electricity, gravity, magnetism, and so on, but rather only their effect in us. Something gravitates me – “Oh, it means there is a force of gravity and I can measure it.” Yet, I do not know what this force really is.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that in such a form we can also attain the Creator. We attain Him from His actions. It is written, “From Your deeds we shall know You.”

This is a very serious limitation for us. Will we ever attain the essence of the phenomena? Never! Even if we aspire to it.

In fact, we, in general, do not even aspire to it. We have some kind of movements, impulses, but we do not suffer from the fact that we do not have this, and therefore, we have nothing in which to reveal the essence of natural phenomena. We see only their effect because we ourselves are the effect.

Yet, is it possible to rise above this to absolute attainment? There, far-far beyond the full attainment of the Creator, we will begin to contact the point from which everything comes. Perhaps, there is an opportunity to get out of our sensations of effects and get to the essence, to the truth.

Somewhere deep inside we want this, although where can we get such a feeling, such a lack? Is the feeling of the truth, the root, the basis, the source, of everything that is happening so necessary to us?

There are a lot of nuances here, and I would like to tease you a little, to cause you such excitement that you will want to reveal this.

In other words, all corporeal phenomena we attain are only through the reaction of our sensory organs to their influence. That is, we are the effect, the reaction to some kind of influence.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

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Question: Let’s say a group of people wants to find the right solution for problems they have. They already have basic knowledge of Kabbalah and they understand that the workshop is a preparation for solving the problem. There are certain rules in this work. Where did they come from?

Answer: We live in a world in which practically no problem can be solved. If it seems to us that today we seemingly found a solution, already tomorrow we understand that it is not a solution. We are constantly deflecting the solution, thinking that we are coming to its revelation.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that until we connect, reach some common denominator, we will be unable to find this solution. It is within us.

All the problems that occur in a bigger or smaller part of humanity come only from the fact that this part of humanity is disconnected. Otherwise, there would be no problems. After all, they all come from our shattering, disconnection, and mutual distance from each other.

If we gather together in order to solve them, we must first connect into a common collective.

Question: Does it mean that Kabbalists do not solve any problems at all?

Answer: No, what for? What problems do we have besides the fact that we are not connected? If we connect, all problems disappear.

Question: So, does Kabbalah solve only one problem: how to connect?

Answer: There are no other problems in the world.

Question: Will other problems disappear as a result of it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What about problems like health, family, etc.?

Answer: The fact is that problems occur on different levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. In order to come to the solution of any problem, we should gather together, connect, and in the connection between us, find the solution. We can then implement it to eliminate corporeal problems.

To find the solution itself, however, is only possible when people are mutually connected, understand, and complement each other. Only then does the solution become clear.

Accordingly, the solution will always be correct and beneficial for implementing any plans on the levels that are lower than their human level.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/25/18

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New Life 291 – Empathy
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Today, a person doesn’t have any pangs of conscience regarding lack of empathy for others. The younger generation does not have a need for emotional connection with others because everything is available for free on the Internet. Empathy develops in situations involving mutual dependence and the influence of the right type of environment. We can develop empathy through education aimed at building mutual complementarity and integral perception. We can engage in communication and connection exercises and games in which each one refers to others as wise and understanding. We can learn to listen to another, dive into his story, and flow with him as if I were reading an enrapturing book. We can learn how to develop empathy toward others, the ability to feel others. This helps in every area of life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 291 – Empathy,” 1/19/14

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Beyond Statistics: A Way Out of the Wave of Violence Against Women in Israel”

Globally, almost 4 in 10 murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner, and Israel is no exception. In the last few days, crimes against women at the hands of their sentimental partners have shaken Israeli society, which is wondering how could it be that women are safer in the streets than in their homes? Without a deep scrutiny of the causes of such a phenomenon, people can just wait until the next victim is added to the list of domestic violence fatalities.

Recently, Esti, 70, was shot at her home in Talmei Eliahu, Southern Israel. The alleged killer, her husband, is an Israeli doctor who worked at John Hopkins and Sinai Baltimore hospitals in the US and volunteered in multiple international charities. Similarly, Maria, 29, was found lifeless in her home at Kiryat Bialik, in the northern part of the country. Michal, 32, a mother of an eight-month-old baby girl, was found stabbed in her home in Moshav Beit Zayit in Jerusalem.

What do all these cases have in common? It is that they were allegedly killed by their husbands. The list of the women murdered this week joins the names of Dianna, Susan, Lily, Zinav, Vivian and nine other women murdered since the beginning of this year. Additionally, 21 women were killed in 2018 and 14 killed two years ago. The list of victims gets longer every year. The reasons for the murders may vary, but at their root is one essential reason: egoism, the human desire to enjoy harming and humiliating others in order to feel superior. The more the ego grows, the greater the satisfaction to exploit and take advantage of others for personal gain.

Our egoistic nature has overblown to colossal proportions over the generations and continues growing at every moment. The ego doesn’t let us consider other people. It creates a barrier between our inner world and society, gradually paralyzing our healthy common sense and emotions. When the malicious ego bubbles inside an entire society, shutting us off from each other to deal with our own concerns and be left alone, it is only a matter of time before it will explode.

People with weak mental stability, or people influenced by violent content in the media or by domestic violence experienced during their upbringing, will be the first to tear down the thin veil that shrouds “sane society.” When the pervasive tension increases, when the spirit in society projects extremism and promotes polarization, when the discourse becomes aggressive and raging, the frustration felt by a person breaks an inner balance, explodes in an instant, and those closest to such a person commonly get the brunt of the blow. Therefore, we need to understand how murderers are not solely responsible for their crimes. They are largely the result of the violent atmosphere permeating the environment.

The world out there in the street, on television, and in social media molds our consciousness more than those with whom we share the same roof. The artificial and staged examples of relationships supplied by the media, fed to us by greedy executives who prioritize their own profit margins over society’s benefit, are opposite to natural relationships and the daily reality.

The defective content that aims to shock and get ratings undermines our opinions and, whether or not we pay attention to it, we act in our relationships as if we were momentary actors. When we find ourselves in stormy situations with people who live in the same home, although we are capable of honestly and directly expressing our inner truth, society’s influences are stronger, causing us to alter our natural behavior. Without a choice, we adopt and imitate the behaviors of characters we saw on the Internet, the TV or at the movies. This is the most evident sign that we have lost direction.

We cannot censure the content in the media or close this means of communication and thus solve the problem. Silencing our voices will only bring new distortions in the worst case, or will postpone the outbreak of the disease for one decade in the best of cases. As long as we fail to deal with the phenomenon of malicious egoism and not bring forth a fundamental change, we will degenerate into a situation where each person will do as he pleases, and society will suffer an irreparable crash.

Our education to be considerate of the other, to set clear moral limits and to overcome our egoistic nature should begin from a young age. Our duty should be to transmit to people in every possible way practical examples of how to be connected in a healthy and reciprocal way to the surrounding society: among family, friends and to the whole of society. We must teach ourselves and the coming generations how to change our attitude to reality and demonstrate how mutual consideration is the foundation for any healthy system of relations.

Education toward balanced relationships, meaning relations built above our self-interest with the intention of benefiting others, is the move that will calm the negative human impulses and balance our surging ego with its opposite positive force.

Education, however, is not intended to excuse a person from a heavy punishment. Rather, it is a significant step toward a healthy society. Let us start preparing ourselves for a life where we consider other people. The media can be a tool that helps us establish values calling for taking others into consideration. Influencers and decision makers should be called on to perform beneficial examples for society, and then instead of experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of murdered women, we will aspire to see headlines of supreme heroic stories that glorify examples of social contribution and benefit that lead us to a harmonious coexistence.

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Rabash, Article No 6, 1984, “Love of Friends (2)” Everyone should think that he has come to the group to cancel his self love, that is, he should not think about how he can fulfill his desire, but as much as possible think only about love for his friends—because only through it he can acquire the desire and need for the new property—the desire to give.

And from love of friends, one can come to love of the Creator, to desire to give contentment to the Creator.

We must not forget that precisely this is what we should think about all the time and aim all our aspirations toward. No matter how much it is opposite to our nature, we still have to position ourselves this way.

I am aimed at rising above my self love for the love of friends because through such an attitude toward them I begin to perceive the Creator, the upper world, the property of bestowal, I rise above my nature. It is the exact condition, that lever, which can lift me.

At first, these are, in general, selfish desires: I want to rise, I want to find, I want. If I need to love another for this, then I am ready. Good. There is nothing to be done if it is necessary.

Then, when we work with this, I suddenly begin to feel that I do not need anything else. I do not even need myself. If there is such a property as bestowal, if there is such a state called the Creator, that is all, that is enough for me, I do not even need to exist.

A person feels the influence of the upper light so much that he does not even ask for himself; on the contrary, he is ready to completely annul himself, to not exist. This is how the next stage of our development begins.

To the extent of the similarity to the Creator—to give Him pleasure just as the Creator wants to give us pleasure—we gain the Creator’s quality, merge with Him, and rise to His level.

There are two stages here. We can acquire a new property, a desire to give, only by working with friends. And only then do we we gain the desire to give pleasure to the Creator, and thus rise to similarity with Him.
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From the Convention In Moldova “Day One” 9/6/19, “Dissolving in the Friends,” Lesson 1

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Do we perceive the essence of natural phenomena?

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”:

The Actuality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Actual things are found even in the corporeal reality, set before our eyes, though we have neither perception nor image of their essence. Such are the electricity and the magnet, called “fluidum.”

Nevertheless, who can say that these names are not real, when we vividly and satisfactorily know their actions? We could not be more indifferent to the fact that we cannot conceive the essence of the subject itself, namely electricity itself.

Indeed, we do not understand what electricity is or the essence of any other physical phenomenon. We observe only their effects.

For example, we know how to work with electricity, with electromagnetism, we use them freely in our lives in everyday household activities. But we do not really know what it is. Yet, this does not bother us at all. We continue to exploit these natural phenomena completely unaware of their essence. And we understand that we do not know this.

Do we know what gravity is, even though everyone feels its impact on themselves? Try to jump, you will see what it is. We measure this force, learn how to overcome it. But what is this force? What is its essence? Where does it come from? We do not know. This is how it is with all natural phenomena.

Baal HaSulam writes that our knowledge about their manifestation satisfies us completely. We do not need anything else in order to use them.

The main thing for us is to use these phenomena. We do not attain their inner essence because nature created us this way. We attain only their effects in our sensations and nothing more.

Of course, we could decide that it would be good to find out where magnetism, electricity, gravity, and all other natural phenomena come from. But they are completely concealed from us. We are just the instruments in which these phenomena manifest, and their manifestations are what we feel.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

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Question: How can we say that we enter into negative connections if we are created as negative elements and are connected with each other?

Answer: On one hand, we all are egoists and are egotistically connected with each other, that is true. Yet, on the other hand, we must turn our negative connections into positive ones.

Then precisely from the negative and positive connections, which are opposite to each other, between them, we will feel the upper world and the Creator. That is why we need to keep all the negative and above them, try to create all the positive.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 8/18/19

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New Life 290 – Why Don’t People Understand Me?
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

We cannot feel someone else because everything we absorb is through ourselves. Everyone has a well-developed ego and doesn’t really care about others or what they feel. Each one of us lives within a balloon and wants what feels good to oneself. If the balloons connect, it is only for selfish interests. We don’t know or understand each other or ourselves. We hide and clash. Nevertheless, it is possible to create mutual understanding and connection between people with the help of the integral education method. A truly free, happy, and unlimited life can be found outside of the balloon, meaning outside of concern for only oneself.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 290 – Why Don’t People Understand Me?” 1/19/14

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