Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “The Work Within Reason And The Work Above Reason”
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 47
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Giving of the Torah”, Item 13
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In the material network it’s we that are important. Humanity thinks that by building such a network, we advance. But every time we attain unity, we reveal the inner breakage of egoistic unity—ushering in war and misery. Egoistic unity is required to recognize its harm.
If one remembers the “condition for the right appeal to the Creator,” that he can’t ask for himself since that’s selfish and not for the group, he evokes the Creator’s “backward” reply, harming himself. But the Creator’s backward side also gradually teaches one the right appeal..
Hence beware of appealing to the Creator before you arrange your relationship with the group, aim yourself at unity, see everyone as one whole. Only by imagining that you connect all the hearts can you turn to the Creator from that single heart. That will be the right prayer.
Don’t think that the condition “love your neighbor as yourself” is carried out by upper light only at the end of correction. All our work starts with this effort, and proper actions and appeals to the Creator are built only upon it, through all 125 degrees—and He corrects it!
Building relationships of mutual guarantee in a 10, we start to feel the net connecting us, which turns into 10 Sefirot, a spiritual Parztuf.
That’s how we fulfill the condition for revealing upper light, the Creator’s manifestation in creation, in the ten as in one single whole.
Although we don’t uphold mutual guarantee, from above we are treated as if we uphold and transgress it, as one body (Partzuf of Adam). If one person transgresses, everyone is held liable since everyone is in one boat. Hence one must always ask for everyone rather than for oneself
Our time is characterized by aggression by previously persecuted color-, sex- and ethnic-minorities toward their former persecutors. This leads to violence.
Kabbalah advises: “Love will cover all sins”—we must develop only love. Otherwise lawlessness and violence will prevail!
Several EU countries (and Trump!) refused to sign UN’s treaty on “orderly” migration since it leads to an influx of illegals and undermines their sovereignty.A coalition has formed in EU opposing Germany’s and France’s globalist obsession. A war of pro- and anti-globalists is coming.
Before Trump, US policy was up to the world’s financial elite, in control of world economy. Since 2008 it’s clear we can’t keep living by financiers’ laws. The alternative: capitalistic progress, national production, duties.
What’s ahead: Trump’s victory or America’s fragmentation?
If there was no darkness, we wouldn’t feel the light. Hence darkness and light have to exist simultaneously, as two opposite sides of one phenomenon. Otherwise we wouldn’t discern reality or feel that we exist. Our existence is based on the contrast of light and darkness.
All “bad” states during the day come only to give us a chance to discern light on their background. Light is the quality of bestowal, a good attitude to the friend for the sake of the common goal, not for self-profit. Darkness to me is the background to discern light, unity, Creator.
Otherwise we don’t correspond to the spiritual network, and it will pressure and push us to unity.
The right connection always goes to/from the Creator through the group: not directly from me to the friend, but to build the soul’s Partzuf out of ten or as many as the Creator brings to the group.
… the place of the Creator’s revelation. Not IN us but BETWEEN us.
Each one must think only about the common net, the group’s wellbeing, personal responsibility for everyone’s connection. There’s no other spiritual work besides unceasing yearning to unite everyone. These connections between us will become a Kli …
Better not to ask for anything than to ask for me.
Before turning to the Creator, one must sort out his relations with friends on the path of spiritual progress.
If I turn to the Creator for me, an egoist, then I destroy instead of building
My appeal causes good or evil in the world.
We thank for darkness just as light since it’s a necessary condition to reveal the Creator to creatures. If we don’t overcome our reluctance to move, disappointment, thoughts of self-love, i.e., the sensation of darkness as the start of building a Kli, we’ll never become human.
Observance of Torah and Commandments is possible only to the extent of unity; without unity, observance of Torah is impossible. That’s because observance of Torah is in desire, and only to the extent of mutual guarantee (Arvut).
Appreciate darkness, which leads to the goal of creation. See light on the background of darkness.
Darkness is what was created to discern light. Hence dark states are more valuable than light ones. Ego doesn’t want darkness and hence we must be more happy about it than light. Don’t value states by how pleasant they are.
Experience allows us, after going through darkness, to anticipate the upcoming revelation of light.
We can recognize, discern and reveal the quality of the Creator’s light only inasmuch as we attain opposite qualities of darkness.
We must thus undergo all states of darkness, opposite to light.
Practically: I must discern a need for connection-bestowal-love-Creator.
All the wisdom of Kabbalah is about how and what to ask of the Creator.
I ask Him (pray) for changes in me—this is man’s work.
The Creator fulfills my proper requests—this is the Creator’s work (Avodat HaShem).
From Twitter, 11/14/18
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My article in Medium: “Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s Apology to German Jews Comes at Height of Anti-Semitism in U.S. and Canada”
Canada’s PM Trudeau meets with MS St. Louis survivor Ana Maria Gordon in Ottawa (Reuters)
Trying to escape the atrocities of Nazi Germany, around 900 Jewish refugees aboard the St. Louis ship were denied entry to Canada on June 7, 1939. It was one of the many rejected requests to obtain asylum in the North American continent, before the liner returned those on board to safe harbor in four European countries. Unfortunately, 254 of its passengers later perished in the Holocaust.
It was precisely the prosecution they were running away from, prompted by a series of events in Germany that put the lives of Jews in peril: the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, discriminatory laws targeting Jewish citizens, the Nuremberg Laws and the Kristallnacht riots by the Nazis in 1938. During the pogroms in Germany and Austria, more than 90 Jews were killed, hundreds of synagogues were torched, and roughly 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to death camps.
The St. Louis set sail on May 13, 1939 when the luxury liner departed Hamburg, Germany and arrived to Cuba as a stopover to the United States. But the Cuban government did not let the passengers disembark and kept the ship in port for days. The authorities refused to accept the foreign refugees despite the fact that they held legal visas previously acquired. Increased anti-Semitism and recent changes to immigration regulations in Cuba restricted their entry.
After the refusal, the boat sailed to the Florida coastline looking for American asylum, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt denied the appeal. The government argued that the refugees aboard the ship had to wait their turn as anybody else in a long line of asylum seekers. After the rejection, St. Louis started returning to Europe.
Aware of the humanitarian emergency, a group of Canadians unsuccessfully tried to convince their government to provide sanctuary for the refugees. The official response was that “no country could open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who want to leave Europe.”
The ship then continued on its course for the Old Continent and docked in Belgium, and from there the passengers were dispersed to France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. But during WWII, many of them fell under Nazi control, putting the refugees back in harm’s way. Many survived, but hundreds were sent to concentration camps and died.
“We apologize to the 907 German Jews aboard the MS. St. Louis, as well as their families,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said recently in the House of Commons. “We used our laws to mask our anti-Semitism, our antipathy and our resentment.” He added, “We are sorry for the callousness of Canada’s response. And we are sorry for not apologizing sooner.”
Trudeau’s mea culpa comes at the time when anti-Semitism is globally on the rise, with Canada and the United States being no exception. The deadly attack to the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg was not an isolated incident in the US. Anti-Semitism on campuses, on the Internet, continuous physical, unprovoked attacks in cities like New York, vandalism to synagogues and private homes are only some of the manifestations of the increasingly rampant hatred in America toward Jews.
With the establishment of the State of Israel, the Jewish people can feel that there is a safe haven. Indeed, on the verge of an unbearable crisis, no country, not even the US or Canada, will be unconditional to us, defend our interests, and protect us from anti-Semitic existential threats. The waves of modern anti-Semitism that now plague the Jews in Europe should serve as a reminder of our mission: to unite. That is our only life insurance.
We have no one to rely on but ourselves. Everything depends on us. The Jews are responsible for everything that happens in the world, whether for good or bad. As it is written, “There is no calamity that comes into the world but for Israel” (Tractate Yevamot 62a).
In the meantime, we do not feel that way, but the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that is how the human communication system is built from within. The Book of Zohar compares the connection between Israel and the world to the organs of the human body: “Israel among the other nations, like a heart among the organs, and as the organs of the body could not exist in the world even one moment without the heart, so all the nations cannot exist in the world without Israel.” All the accusations, every persecution, every rejection, every rage and threat expresses the world’s demand that the Jewish people, wherever they are, should fulfill its role and lead humanity to happiness and a meaningful life.
Unconsciously, humanity feels that the Jews have the solution to all its problems and the key to its happiness. Global pressure on Israel is guided by the program of human development defined in nature, as Rav Kook wrote in the early 1900s: “In Israel is the secret to the unity of the world.” If so, sooner rather than later the Jewish nation must fulfill its role toward humanity and be a “light unto the nations” — to serve as a good example of a civilized society in which everyone lives in mutual solidarity and brotherly love above all differences. Only then will we sail to a new and good world. As our sages said, “If I am not for me, who is for me; and if I am (only) for myself, what am I. And if not now, when?” — Hillel, Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14
Question: Is there a sign that we did a good job and attracted the Light that reforms?
Answer: If we do a good job, then we find ourselves in a “pit.” This is both the result of good work and a reward. In order to come closer to the Creator, we must have a big uncorrected desire. We are given one only to the extent that we can handle it.
Instead of a medal, the reward is that we’re given additional egoistic desires that we fall into where everything becomes dark, irritating, and hopeless.
Feeling powerless, we want to get out of this pit. Not for ourselves, but for the sake of love and bestowal. When we try to get out of it for the sake of others, then we transform this pit into a mountain.
Question: So, the reward is that one feels like a sinner?
Answer: Yes. This is a different system, a different Torah. Here, inner scrutiny is what’s most important.
Question: Is the lowest point of the pit a feeling that a person cannot move from the place?
Answer: Yes, it is similar to the prison-pit that Joseph was thrown into in Egypt.
Question: How was he able to break free if he could not come out on his own?
Answer: He convinced the baker, who was there with him, that he could be useful to Pharaoh. The baker, in turn, told Pharaoh about a person who knows the future. This is how Joseph got out of the pit. Here, we are talking about a very complex system.
You cannot fight the ego directly head on because it is our very nature. We have to constantly convince the ego that this is all for its benefit.
Pharaoh must feel the need for Joseph, and only then, from our inability to use egoism, we will get rid of it.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 4/18/18
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To build new organs of perception for revealing the spiritual world means to build connections between us within which we can reveal the Creator and thus bestow pleasure to Him. This new perception is called “faith above reason,” the degree of Bina, bestowal, an altruistic intention.
Preparing us for such a correction, the Creator gradually hides the spiritual worlds, lowering them to the level of this world where the created being can exist, and breaks the common soul into many parts. At the beginning of correction, we must establish connections on the material level, that is, egoistically, within reason. Then, it is necessary to rise above it so that all our connections are non-egoistic and proceed not from the desire to receive pleasure, but from the nature of bestowal.
Simultaneously, we do not destroy our desire to enjoy, but on the contrary, we use it every time as an example, called “the left line,” and build the opposite above it, the right line, the desire for bestowal.
It turns out that it is impossible to rise to the degree of love and bestowal until hatred, rejection, division, and egoism in all of its guises are revealed. Above all this, we build the right line: unity, love, connection, and mutual understanding, as it is written: “Love covers all transgressions.” If there are no transgressions, there is no love. There must be both, one after the other, a step to the left and a step to the right.
First, we must reveal a deficiency on the left side, and from that deficiency, we will understand what its opposite should be, since there is no Light except that which emerges from darkness, and we can build the right line, the correct connection.
We currently do not know what the correct connection is. It has no prerequisites. Therefore, we only need to follow the Kabbalists’ advice because only in this way can we build new connections between us, which will be considered as spiritual. In these special connections, we will discover the power of bestowal and love called “the Creator.”
This is the person’s work. All our studies are a preparation for practical realization, for building connections at a different level, according to a different nature of bestowal in which there is not a drop of egoistic desire that rules us today.
We currently do not know what the desire to bestow is. No matter how many times we force ourselves, we will not squeeze anything but egoism out of ourselves. However, in essence, everything is very simple: we just need to resemble our desire to the Creator’s desire. If we try to enter our neighbor’s desire and place it above our own egoism, making it stronger and more important than our own desire despite its being opposite to our personal interest, we can learn to replace one nature with another. This is how we will be able to understand what it means to overcome ourselves and go beyond our opinion, our feelings, and our mind.
My own feelings and mind remain, but in addition I acquire the heart and mind of my friends, of the group. I follow my friends with my eyes closed because I cannot check and compare their desires with my own. You just have to give the “last shirt” to your friend, that is, his desire should determine all my actions.
I use my body as a machine within which the group’s desire operates. This is how I will advance until I discover that this is the Creator’s desire who is already in me, guiding me. While performing the actions, I will begin to attain Him because it is the Creator who acts within me. If I give Him this opportunity through my own free choice, I will reveal His nature, His character, His program, His approach within these actions, and I will become like Him. Thus, we achieve a merger with the upper force, and the Creator is clothed in the creation.
The time has come to practically get involved in this work more seriously and intensively. I hope that we have already taken the first half-step ahead.1
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/18, Lesson on the Topic: “The Work Within Reason And the Work Above Reason”
1 Minute 0:20
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New Life #95 – Healthy Lifestyle and Preventive Medicine
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
True preventive medicine must encompass all areas of our lives including reducing stress, air pollution, public transportation within cities, as well as balancing relationships with the environment. Furthermore, it helps to show positive programs on TV, offer exercises in laughter at work, reduce pressure in educational institutions, and create workshops for developing good relationships in the workplace. The best sport is walking for an hour a day. Men require a sense of security like they’d get from a mother whereas women require warmth, listening, and understanding. If we balance the relationships between us, there will be no cause for disease.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #95 – A Healthy Lifestyle And Preventive Medicine,” 10/30/12
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “The Mutual Guarantee”
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 44
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Giving of the Torah”, Item 12
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Basic Income Earth Network published my new article “Basic Income Should Join Forces With A ‘Social Network’ Revolution“:
It’s the start of a new month. You wake up in the morning feeling a rush of energy. The air is thick with a positive warmth. You’re immediately motivated and inspired with a thought that is, as if, circulating around everybody’s mind:
“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”
You immediately do what you need to do: go to the bathroom, put your clothes on, get something to eat, and check your bank account. You see your monthly basic income allowance came in. You get through all these necessities as quickly as possible because you want to start connecting to the means where you draw this positive energy.
That means is a social network.
It is unlike the social networks we use today. Ad-free. Conflict-free.
It is a social network thriving with friendliness and enthusiasm. Everyone feels equally important and responsible for creating it. Everybody actively expresses their opinion in discussions with no fear of judgment, criticism or argument. Everybody listens to everybody and does not simply interject with their opinions.
In exchange for the basic income allowance that entered your bank account a little earlier, you need to answer a few questions in this network. As soon as you see the first question, you understand why you had that thought earlier. The question is:
“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”
You click “Agree” on the network’s conditions, which state a few guidelines that all participants need to follow in this network. They ultimately boil down to one main condition: Leave your ego outside.
You agree to everyone being equally important; everyone actively answering the questions (which are made with everyone’s ability to answer them in mind); no arguing with, criticizing or judging others; focusing on the topic at hand, i.e., not veering it into unrelated directions; and listening to others speak as if it is you who is speaking.
These conditions are founded on a synergic principle where humans and nature are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. They aim at guiding us so that we don’t fall victim to our involuntary, egoistic impulses when we participate in creating a well-connected social atmosphere.
You connect to a video conference with a few other people, and you each state your answers to the questions. In addition to the first question—“How can I best contribute myself to society today?”—there are a couple more:
“What is one positive example that inspired me yesterday of someone contributing to society?”
“How can we help each other not fall victim to our automatic egoistic impulses that make us want to criticize, judge and harm others, and support each other in the construction of a positively connected atmosphere above our self-centeredness?”
Halfway into the discussion, you feel a new wave of energy stream through you. It is an energy latent in nature, which becomes revealed when people come together, regardless of their differences, and act, think and desire in a way that is adapted to nature’s integrality. We do not feel this in our current world of relationships.
After finishing the discussion, some people go to work, others stay in the network to participate in other activities, whether they be discussions, lessons or courses either to deepen their knowledge of nature, human development, psychology, or to improve life skills, relationships, parenting, health, personal finance, time management, or participating in support groups for a wide range of interests and life situations. You choose to participate in this network online, but the same activities also take place at local community centers for anyone who wants to participate in a more physical way.
All the activities in the network aim at both supplying what people need, so that they do not have any problems supplying themselves with life’s necessities, and beyond that, improving people’s connections and social skills. You meet new people all the time, and the atmosphere is always enlivening, supportive and constructive.
The tendency to support, benefit and connect with other people above our egoistic drives, is continually encouraged in this network. Likewise, values we currently hold become viewed from a new, unified vantage point. For example, competition in this network is based not on money, but on how much we can help and serve others.
Success in this network is not seen as building a personal empire despite, and on account of, other people. Instead, success is seen as a social construct, that we succeed together as a society, by connecting above our egoistic, divisive drives. By doing so, we get positive feedback from nature, a new surge of energy and motivation, by aligning ourselves with nature’s constant unifying motion.
This is how I envision a correctly functioning universal basic income. That is, UBI cannot work on its own. Simply giving people allowances without any incentives to succeed would stagnate society. In order for UBI to work, it needs to be provided in exchange for prosocial, connection-enriching participation, learning and development. People need tools, education, and encouragement to build a positively-functioning society in exchange for basic income. The idea of the “prosocial network” above is one direction the connection-enriching educational programs could take.
A Much Deeper and Wider Source of Motivation
In today’s capitalistic economy, people contribute to society with money as a leading motivator. Other drives, like respect, honor, fame, control, and knowledge are interwoven with money. That is, there is a price tag attached to every kind of social contribution.
However, considering a future where automation and robots will be given much of the workload, and where people get basic income allowances regardless of any work, we’re left to ponder serious questions:
What would people want to contribute to that society?
Why would they want to contribute to that society?
This is where the concept of universal basic income enters to support and propel the value shift necessary not only for UBI to work in the long term, but also for the foundation of a prosperous, connected society of happy and confident individuals, each motivated to contribute to the creation of a new thriving culture.
A prosocial resurgence combined with UBI has the power to make a significant gear shift in society. In order for that to happen, human relations, usually viewed as a byproduct of people’s professions and education, now need to be placed at the center of our attention. The motivation to contribute to society would need to change, from a monetary motivation to a purely prosocial, pro-connective motivation: one where we would regularly vitalize each other with examples of how we rise above our egoistic tendencies, thinking about, connecting to and benefiting other members of society. This would serve as a source of constant motivation, encouragement and ultimately, pave the way to a society of united, happy and confident individuals.
Today, there are thousands of people worldwide from all walks of life who feel the importance of jumpstarting the connection-enriching process in society, pioneering it even before the widespread launch of basic income. They are already engaged in learning, implementing and experimenting with the principle of positive connection above differences as the most valuable means to improve human society.
Anyone who is attracted to this idea of bettering the world by bettering human relations, and who wishes to participate in the learning and creation of a new prosocial, pro-connective culture, is welcome to learn its fundamental principles and basic concepts.
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