Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What will the state of Israel look like in 2050?“

No one can answer this question definitively because we’re in a process of free choice.

What does it mean that we’re in a process of free choice?

It means that we can either move forward unknowingly into traps and blows that will force us to examine the way we live our lives, or we can build a society that will let us carry out what depends on us: to unite with each other, balancing our relations with those of the integral and interconnected laws of nature. Ultimately, if we fail to progress the latter way, then we can consider ourselves done for.

Let’s say that by 2050, we need to have transitioned to a much more unified society, with a certain amount of disclosure of nature’s quality of love and bestowal dwelling among our relations. To the extent that we tried to unite, we would experience a positive reaction from nature, and to the extent that we failed to make efforts in the direction of unity when we could have, then we would experience suffering. And the suffering would be in order to show us that we’re going the wrong way if we’re not trying to unite.

Nevertheless, what can be said is that the nation of Israel will continue living on. Why? It is because the nation of Israel needs to carry out the above-mentioned correction of the world, i.e. unification in order to be a conduit for global unity.

The nation of Israel carries the method of the world’s correction at its foundation. It received the method of correction from Abraham in ancient Babylon, based on the premise of “love your neighbor as yourself,” and in order spread its unity to humanity at large (to be “a light unto the nations”).

We thus need to consider what depends on us, how we can realize the correction—to awaken a spirit of unity among each other in order for a sense of connection to ripple throughout the world.

Therefore, I cannot say what will happen in 2050. What will happen is what we will decide—the extent to which we will implement our unifying function in the world.

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Question: How much time is left before the creation of the ideal world? Will we make it in this time or is it only the prerogative of our children?

Answer: No. It is you who will see the new world as soon as you create it from the fragmented pieces of the system called Adam, or creation, or the common soul.

It has been broken into 600,000 pieces. We have to connect these parts again into one system and then it will be called Adam, which means “similar to the Creator.”

This is when the so-called adhesion will occur, the dynamic balance between the creation and the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 7/28/19

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“The history of the past” sounds a little ironic, like someone’s story based on one’s own subjective experiences, or even a novel. People think that history is the events that happened a few days, months, or many years ago in our world, for unknown reasons, in a random order of cause and effect.

However, the fact is that our reality has a spiritual root that descends and reaches the corporeal world, creating the concept of time in it. At certain times, due to certain forces emanating from their spiritual root, the spiritual form spreads downward and materializes in a corporeal form. We perceive it all as history.

The wisdom of Kabbalah reveals the events that must happen. Therefore, it does not separate between past history and future events. The same spiritual roots must be revealed in this lowest world, only some roots have already been revealed and others are yet to be revealed. It turns out that there is a story about the past and the future.

The entirety of history is predetermined and will undoubtedly happen. Many things written by Kabbalists have already come true. Therefore, history is not divided into the known past and unknown future. For Kabbalists history is one clear process, which is impossible to doubt. They study it as a process of descent of the upper roots that descend to our world losing their spiritual degree, that is, “materializing’ and manifesting in matter such as inanimate matter, plants, animals, and humans of this world.

For example, is it important for us to know that the point in the heart, called “Moses,” which takes a person’s desires out of egoistic slavery, was once embodied in this world as an old man with a snow-white beard whose name was also “Moses,” who led his people out of Egypt? It is written that a person should see himself as exiting Egypt every day. In other words, it is not an event that happened a long time ago and now does not exist. A person should exit his ego every day, from the slavery of egoistic desire to freedom.

Everyone is obliged to perform such exodus, and this is not ancient history, but everyone’s personal story, which one must write: to understand that he is enslaved by his egoism, to fight with his own personal Pharaoh, to escape from him, and reach freedom. He must then undergo all the other changes up to the end of correction, which is not yet visible to us in our world.

The history of this world unfolds as if according to a clock ticking on the wall. We, however, should work according to the upper clock where there is no past, present, and future, but everything is determined relative to the observing person. Therefore, it does not matter whether or not the event has already happened in our world. Kabbalists do not look at this at all because they do not feel time and do not measure it by the criteria accepted by the people of this world.

History in the view of the wisdom of Kabbalah is not something that happened once upon a time or will happen in the future, but rather, it is something that already exists now. Each person himself discovers this history according to his spiritual advancement. I can go through all of history from beginning to end and in the opposite direction from end to beginning, walk through it, feel what the First and Second Temples are and their destruction, the Egyptian exile, the Maccabean war, and so on. If a person is controlling his will to receive, he can experience all historical periods as he wishes.

It is said that there is no past, present, and future in the Torah because it is above time. It is precisely about rising above the time of our world and not being tied to my egoism that at the moment determines for me in what time I should live, that is, what I should feel now. I must rise above my egoistic desire and then I myself will determine not only in what time and era, but in what state I want to live. That is, I will become completely free as if floating above time.

When a person receives a spiritual nature, he is already not tied to time, movement, and space, that is, corporeal parameters, but exists above them, in spiritual space. By studying Kabbalah, a person gradually departs from childish ideas about history. Yet, in order to really break away from corporeal perception, it is necessary to acquire an anti-egoistic screen (Masach), a tool that lets us rise above egoism and become free. A person can then already imagine everything that exists in our root.
From KabTV’s “First steps in Kabbalah. The history of Kabbalah,” 10/7/19

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Love Covers All Crimes” (Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

Lesson on the Topic “Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria”

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We consist of a dark will to receive that depends entirely on the fulfillment it receives. It is the lowliest, most helpless and dependent property, which is unable to do anything by itself; it is only waiting to be fulfilled. If we are made of such matter, we must understand that our advancement, success, and exit from this state is possible only on account of a force opposite to us, foreign to us, the force of bestowal, love, connection, and unity.

But how can we attract this force if we do not have any connection with it? If we remain in our egoistic nature, we are lost. Either we resign ourselves and submit completely to the control of our nature or we demand that the nature opposite to us will work on us and bring us out of this unconscious, dependent, lowliest state.

According to the nature of the will to receive, I only want to satisfy and silence my desire; that is, I am bringing myself to death. Here, the wisdom of Kabbalah comes to our aid, explaining in what form we should yearn for fulfillment, how to change ourselves, how to correctly use our desire—the only thing we have.

Inanimate nature, plants, and animals instinctively obey their desire, but a person is given an opportunity to create a system for analyzing, comprehending, changing, and comparing the desired and actual states. Through the environment, I can receive forces opposite to my own will to receive. Thus, I will be able to reach balance, comparing the two opposite systems.

Therefore, the correction of a person is only possible with the help of prayer. I connect with the force opposite to me and ask it to give me the force of bestowal. Now there are two forces in me, like two lines that will help me build the middle line from them and rise higher and higher above my nature, that is, acquire stronger and stronger faith above reason.

We must concentrate all our abilities and capabilities on this appeal to the upper force. Yet, since we do not feel it and cannot be like it, we need to build a system of shattered egoistic desires that will feel with all its egoism the need to connect with others, as it is written: “Go and earn from each other.” This is why we build a family, a society, a nation, a country, and so on.

Development happens at the expense of a growing unity until this system begins to eat itself up the way it happens in our days. Egoism no longer sees the benefit in connection, having reached the highest possible mark in it. Then egoism wanders, not seeing where to go further. This is the essence of the crisis of our time. It is evident among the young generation that it does not know where to go and what to fulfill itself with. It does not have a need for connection with others; a smartphone is enough.

From this, it is obvious that the old method of connection, which was giving us fulfillment, does not work anymore. Now we need to build a new form of connection not based on receiving benefits at the expense of others, which brought us to a dead end. First comes the recognition of evil, that is, the understanding that it is not possible to correct our condition in the old way. It is necessary to restore the system that existed before the shattering, that is, to bring it back to the corrected state.

All this is achieved only through a prayer, a request, if we understand that there is no way out and there is only one action left: the connection that we can reach only by requesting the force of connection. We recognize the evil of our nature and the good of the opposite to it perfect system, which we do not feel because of our shattering. The difference between these two systems is the difference between the Creator and the created beings.

In order to ask for the force of correction, we ourselves must start building a small, corrected system and it will become clear from it what needs to be requested. So, we come to a small group, to a ten. And from there, we already see what we are lacking in order to connect as one. We do not cancel each other; rather, we complement each other.

This is how the entire ten works, and when we finish assembling this puzzle, we feel the inner force and the life of unity in it, which is the Creator. Therefore, I need to bring myself to the feeling of the ten, to the desire that can be revealed in it, and to find out how much strength we need in order to feel like ten, and not like one, two, or five.

From this aspiration, we will feel the yearning for the upper force of connection called the Creator, the connecting, fulfilling, and sustaining force. All forces are above, and all the requests are below—in our hands. We will not get anything until we request exactly what we should and in the correct quantity and quality. Then indeed, “His seed will be mighty in the land, a generation of upright ones, which shall be blessed.”¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/19, Sukkot

¹ Minute 0:15

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KabNet published my new article: “Why Do Bad Things Happen?”

How many times in our lives have we asked ourselves, “What did I do to deserve this?” “Why do such troubles happen to me?”

A person might get fired, be stricken by a serious illness, or experience the loss of a loved one and start wondering how to receive answers to these heartfelt questions.

Sometimes, after giving our all, everything turns out wrong and it’s unclear why. So, what is the connection between our actions and the results we experience in life?

“Hardships serve to awaken deep questions about their cause and purpose, so that we would want to look outside our narrow individualistic worldview and seek to discover the true integral state we exist in.”

We live in a paradoxical world where a criminal could live a beautiful life while a simple worker, earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, could suffer. And we’re left wondering how life could be so unfair.

We all exist in a vast, intricate network of connection, and our inability to understand such contradictions in life comes from the fact that we fail to feel the full extent of our interdependence. As such, we neither perceive the far-reaching chain reaction of our influence in the world, nor do we feel the responses to our actions clearly and directly.

However, every nuance of our behavior and thought, whether conscious or unconscious, affects the system of nature we live in and enables a response. We are simply unable to connect the dots and understand exactly why things happen the way they do.

How Your Past Actions Influence Your Future

Although it is common to seek out past actions when we encounter negative experiences later in life, trying to connect the dots in such a way is an over-simplistic and incorrect approach that fails to take many variables into account.

Hardships serve to awaken deep questions about their cause and purpose, so that we would want to look outside our narrow individualistic worldview and seek to discover the true integral state we exist in. The more we suffer, the readier we become to match ourselves to the interdependent and interconnected system of nature we live in. When we begin to uncover the vastness of this system, we will see what kind of influence we have on reality, and what actions can be considered as good or bad.

Today, we evaluate our lives according to a very limited and linear perception. Until we develop a new perception and sensation of the integral nature, we will continue walking around in circles, accumulating more and more pain. In a sense, we are like a child who eats only sweets because it appears to us as most enjoyable, not understanding the harm we are causing our body, which will catch up on us sooner or later.

How to Deal With Difficult Situations

So what should we do when we experience various forms of suffering? Firstly, we must not blame or devour ourselves, nor should we delve into the past to see what we or someone else did to cause the suffering. Instead, we must accept the inevitability of the situation, and use the question about the cause of the suffering it awakens in us in order to increase our connection with our surrounding environment. In order for this to happen, we must be in a supportive society of people who also want to rise to a higher understanding of their lives. As the wisdom of Kabbalah explains, it is the only way to positively affect the world: to find a group of like-minded people and start uniting with them.

Under this new perception, we will see how our increasing unification brings us into increasing balance and harmony with nature, increasing our happiness, confidence and comfort. In other words, the cause of any problem in life is our incomplete perception that fails to see how we’re independently connected to each other.

In the upgraded perception of reality that matches nature’s connectedness, we will perceive every situation as good, since we would see anything happening to us at every moment as a means to rise above the situation-at-hand, and reveal the force of love, bestowal and connection that acts throughout nature. All events of our lives and throughout humanity’s history are leading us toward the realization of this lofty goal.

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Question: Do you say that we need to try to feel the descents together?

Answer: There are descents and ascents that we feel together and there are individual ones.

Question: What does it mean to feel a state of descent as a whole group?

Answer: It depends on who interprets the descent.

I interpret it as disconnection from the Creator, from the group, that is, from moving forward. For example, I can feel a certain heaviness, but I still cannot determine that it was given to me for my advancement; I am just immersed in it.

When I begin to perceive this heaviness as an instrument of moving forward, then it becomes my instrument of advancement. Now I work with it with joy, realizing that thanks to it I will advance.

When we have a common goal, common actions, and common life, then in some things we have common ascents and descents, and in some things individual ones. We must use the fact that we can work together and thus achieve common results.

Here I more or less understand the state of my friends and I must help them, take part in it. For example, it is very important for us to be inspired before a congress, talk about the importance of the goal, the importance of our gatherings, the importance of the congress, the importance of the lessons. We must collect all this among ourselves and inspire each other.

Thus, a common field will arise: the Creator will not manifest itself in any personal sensation, but in the general field. This is very important because His manifestation can only happen when we are already connected in the ten, in some form of a common Kli (vessel).
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 2/13/19

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Remark: People perceive the attitude of others differently. Gary Chapman, a relationship consultant and the author of the book The Five Love Languages, five million copies of which were sold, describes the different approaches and perceptions of each type of person, the way they perceive love.

He says that there are five kinds of love.

The first is when people like words. When love is expressed by words of encouragement, support, and praise.

My Comment: Usually, women and little children like this.

Remark: The other kind of love is “time.” Here, on the contrary, words are not needed. You need to spend time with a person, to pay attention to him, to be with him, and so on.

My Comment: Time itself arranges everything between them. Time affects everyone. As the saying goes: “Time is a great healer.” Things change over time.

Remark: There is a kind of love called “touch.” That is, people like tactile sensations: when they are hugged, stroked, and they experience positive emotions from this,

My Comment: Everybody likes that: children, women, animals, and even men.

Remark: The next kind of love is “gifts.” Every little thing matters such as a trinket, a treat, a note, some kind of surprise, or something unexpected.

And the fifth kind of love is “help.” Do something for the other, express your attention by actions, iron a shirt, clean floors, cook supper, or just help with something.

Scientists say that conflicts in couples arise due to the lack of understanding. If I want to hear nice, pleasant words and the other person wants an ironed shirt or to spend time together, we have a conflict, we simply do not understand each other. That is, conflicts arise precisely because of misunderstanding.

My Comment: It depends on the consumer, so to say, with whom I am dealing.

I cannot give ironed diapers to a child and win his love by this; he will not understand. Even if I give him some tasty, good food. He needs a special warmth, special treatment, and assurance.

If I deal with an animal, I must treat it on its level so that it will feel that it can trust me, that I am its owner, I protect it, feed it, give it water, and look after it. That is, I am its big companion and friend.

If we are talking about the friendly love between men, then first of all, this means supporting and understanding each other.

If it is love between a man and a woman, then everything goes: anything a man likes and anything a woman likes. And one does not like what the other one likes. However, if they understand what the other likes, they can arrange themselves in such a way that they will enjoy even things they could never imagine and come up with by themselves, but because the other enjoys them.

A woman likes gifts, signs of love, attention, and so on. A man, first of all, likes to be served and fed: “The way to man’s heart is through his stomach.” This is really so, because in regard to communication and especially love, men are more primitive than women. If a woman can in some way remind him of his mother, her attitude toward him, then that is it. He is already following her like a little duckling after the duck.

Remark: We see that over the years relationships between couples develop. First, there is a romantic period, then it transforms into a more complex relationship, and after a number of years they suddenly discover that they do not understand each other and did not understand each other during all these years.

My Comment: In principle, it can be taught. Yet, if there is no such education or these couples are still very young and have no experience, do not know how to protect their relationship, do not know how to forgive and to make an internal compromise without even talking about it and discussing it, then, of course, it is very difficult.

We need to teach this. It is a collective. Man and woman, or in any other combination: man, woman, and a child, or two men, or two women. Any number of people is a collective and it requires a completely different approach than with one person. Here, it is necessary to teach. It is quite complicated.

We see that we do not engage in such work. Even today at school they teach sex and do not teach how to treat the other as a person and not as an object of sexual fulfillment. It is very one-sided, crude, and beastly. It means that there is no education at all.

I remember when I still lived in Leningrad and studied at the faculty of medical cybernetics, we came to the Leningrad maternity hospital number two. There were 400 birthing mothers there. I asked the doctor: “What psychological training do you conduct with them?” He said: “Unfortunately, we do not have such specialists.”

Remark: We see that throughout humanity’s history, love is valued most of all. Poets and writers praise it. People as if follow an elusive dream.

My Comment: They want to sell this elusive dream.

Question: Why does humanity need love?

Answer: Humanity needs love because without it there can be no life on the animate level or on our level.

Even in sex, we see some kind of need for something bigger, although it is purely mechanical and animalistic, for the sake of pleasure at that moment and nothing more.

If sex were only about that, then we would only be mating like animals. But we have a need for warmth and care, for mutual support, the thing we call love.

Love is mutual support. Love is the feeling of being loved, of being taken care of, of being loved just the way you are. These are very serious emotions; animals do not have them. Even in regard to their cubs, animals only have feelings for a short period of time in order to nurse them so that they will not die from hunger, and then they part and never even notice and recognize each other.

Remark: There is always such a moment in love when two people seemingly love each other, but one imagines love in one way and the other one in another way.

My Comment: It is because we do not get an education. Love is a human relationship, a need, an attitude to the other. Therefore, we need to study it and to teach it. It is not sex, but rather the ability to fulfill the inner needs of the other person. It may have nothing to do with sex.

Question: What do we study about love? How to fulfill, how to change my habits in order to treat the other so that it will give him pleasure?

Answer: For that, it is necessary to feel what kind of person he is. This requires a serious mutual work with each other. And do not be shy. “I like when you stroke me.” “And I like it when you smile.” And so on. Explain. Everything is very simple.

“No, I want him to guess!” How can he guess?!

We must understand and openly talk about it and discuss it. Although young people do not like this at all, it seems to them that everything should be spontaneous, simple, and immediate. A person is a very complex, multifaceted animal.

Question: What is the key you would give people for the law of love that will help them in relationships in any situation?

Answer: In any situation, the first thing is to concede, as my teacher said. Love is an animal that is next to you and you must feed it with mutual concessions.

It is in a woman’s nature to adapt to a man. I do not belittle her for this in any way, on the contrary. She is wise. After all, she gives birth. She has to create a certain environment in order to raise children, and so on. That is, nature gave her such capabilities.

Man is very primitive. He just needs to be reminded a little bit of the things he received from his mother and he will be running after you like a little child after his mother. That is all.

I recommend to all the women: go to his mother and start asking what food he likes, what kind of service, and everything around him. The mother will be very pleased! She will understand that this is really the woman that will be able to replace her.

This is a very simple, primitive system of relations: to think only how to give pleasure to another, at least somewhat, just a little. However, this already requires wisdom, experience, and understanding of human psychology.

Good luck in love!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 12/19/18

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The Times of Israel published my new article “How to Maximize the Potential of the Elderly in Society”

‘80 and 4’ is a televised social experiment that has started being televised in Israel, based on the British documentary series, which connects preschoolers to the elderly. It examines the effects on the 80-plus-year-olds and four-year-olds, and addresses an important topic of intergenerational integration: Are the elderly realizing their fullest potential in benefiting both themselves and society at large?

Intergenerational integration is in fact merely a modern term for the natural connection that used to dwell in every household. I myself grew up in a home with grandparents on both sides. They gave me more attention than my parents. Naturally, parents are busy juggling work and family, and also play a more disciplinary role toward the children, while grandparents generally have a warmer and friendlier relationship with their grandchildren.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, familial connection spans three generations: children, parents and grandparents. In the language of Kabbalah, such connection is called Ibur, Yenika and Mochin, three stages of the soul’s growth.

Children and grandparents share a common closeness to nature: the child’s innocence with his undeveloped desires to benefit at the expense of others, and the elderly person’s sensation of living beyond the rat race, having lost interest in the pursuit of money, respect, fame and power.

Their relationship also holds the most common benefit.

It is very important for the health, well-being and vitality of the elderly to feel as contributing members of society. Children provide them with that sensation. Children always need help, can be taught about multiple aspects of life, and need to play in order to enjoy and learn.

When the elderly mingle with the children, they try to act like them, playing as if they were also children. Such activity has a vitalizing physiological and psychological effect on the elderly, as their systems start functioning like a child’s.

As for the children, they receive attention and can learn from the knowledge and experience of the elderly, whether professional expertise or wisdom from life.

Despite all of our scientific, technological and cultural progress, we are still far from realizing the immense untapped potential in society. The common viewpoint as we grow up is that we will eventually retire, go on pension, become liberated from work, and free to enjoy life.

Unfortunately, such an approach fails to take into account its detrimental effects. Retirement instead causes us to sink into ourselves, detach from society, withdraw from our contributory roles in society, feel no benefit from society in return—it’s a terrible state.

Contribution to society is human society’s metabolism.

Having a role in which you commit to express yourself and give of yourself to others, provides you with a reason to live and has long-lasting positive effects. Moreover, we do not die because our bodies get old; we die when we detach from society.

Nowadays, people live to the age of 90 and over, and instead of using their life experience for the common good, we closet them in nursing homes. In a healthy society, the elderly are treated with much more respect and genuine requests to make a contribution. If the elderly were to disappear from the world, we would immediately feel that the world had lost some power and depth. They are an integral part of nature, holding tremendous importance.

I hope that social ventures of this kind and a more active connection between the generations will become commonplace, and we will be awarded with the feeling that we all belong to a single society, one that treats every person as a very precious and indispensable being, living harmoniously together.
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