Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What a Canadian psychologist knows about Israel that Israelis do not”

Jordan Peterson, a Canadian media personality, clinical psychologist, author, and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, describes himself as a “classic British liberal.” The media often describes him as conservative. Be that as it may, his words to a 3,000 strong audience at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem should not fall on deaf Israeli ears because when he says emphatically, “You have a tremendous moral responsibility,” and “Show the world what the holy city could look like – because we need it,” we should understand that he speaks for billions and the onus really is on us.

A couple of weeks ago, at an event hosted by The Daily Wire in Jerusalem, Peterson said, “Everyone looks here to see how you are doing under this tremendous assault of adversarial criticism – as this little tiny people in the middle of no-man’s land – as a cardinal model of the nation state and the city on the hill. You have a tremendous moral responsibility like you have perhaps had for your entire history for reasons that are very difficult to understand.”

The problem is that what non-Jews feel about Israel and Israelis, we refuse to admit because while they can simply express how they feel, we have to respond to those emotions. It is a heavy burden to be responsible for the world’s problems. It is perfectly understandable that we refuse to admit it and strive to either deny it or assimilate among the nations. But the nations will clearly not allow us to do either.

We have been decrying our fate for centuries; we have written books about it, and we even titled one of them Israel, the Ever-dying People. However, when it comes to doing what we must, to making ourselves “a shining light on a hill,” as Peterson put it, we turn our backs on our mission and blame each other for the hatred turned against us.

The obligation we avoid is our obligation to each other, to unite “as one man with one heart” and become the “cardinal model” that Peterson and the rest of the world want to see. They do not need our high-tech industry or our sophisticated weapons. They need our unique, authentic moral system, the one that was established on the basis of love of others. Only if we establish our society in Israel based on this value, we will win the world’s approval.

The world is aching for it. Some of the people will ask this from us nicely, the way Peterson articulated it. Others will demand it through violence. Either way, we will know no peace or peace of mind until we provide the world the example of unity and solidarity that we must.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Can Israel Win against Terror?”

Since the birth of the Jewish nation, it has faced vicious enemies. Each time, a different villain sought to extinguish our nation. They almost always won, and we almost always lost, but in the end, we are still here and they are long gone.

Terrorism is a new kind of adversary: ill-equipped, disorganized, and untrained, yet tenacious and full of fighting spirit. The latter two were precisely our weapons when we fought against mighty enemies, and now we feel lost precisely because we do not have them. If we rebuild our spirit, we will win without a fight. If we do not rebuild it, we will lose no matter how hard we fight.

Today’s terrorists are more resourceful than ever, and they are fearless. We, on the other hand, despite having far superior equipment, are timid, passive, and dejected. If we continue to rely only on weapons, we will disintegrate, the country will dissolve, and our people will return to the dismal state it was in prior to the establishment of Israel, and which culminated in the Holocaust.

If we want to win against terror and stay in Israel, we have to act on two levels: internal and external. The internal level is the decisive one, and the one that will determine if we succeed. However, the external level is vital as a means to enable our work on the internal.

On the external level, we must cut off all ties with the enemy, and fight against it just as we should fight against an enemy. In other words, if they come to kill us, we should kill them first. At that point in our struggle, we should have no thoughts of peace because it will not happen. On the contrary, the more passive we are, the more aggressive they will become, leading to more casualties on both sides.

As with any struggle for survival in nature, if your enemy wants to kill you, and you are hesitant, it will not pacify your enemy, but only make him more aggressive because he will interpret your hesitation as a sign of weakness. But if you show strength, determination, and courage, your enemy will hesitate, and this will buy you time to do what you need to do.

Once we have relative peace, we should focus all our efforts on the internal level, which is within the Israeli society. The key element that makes us strong is our unity. Although Jews are famous for never agreeing, our ability to rise above our disagreements and form a society based on mutual responsibility and care for one another has earned us the title Am Segula (a virtuous people), whose mission was to become an example of unity, a light to the nations.

The Segula (virtue) that awarded us the title was our determination to nurture love of others to the point where we have made it the overarching principle of Jewish law. This is why Rabbi Akiva said that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the whole, and the law of the Torah.

The unity of the people of Israel was unique and praiseworthy precisely because it was so unlikely. It was unity among people from multiple backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities, who agreed on one and only thing: unity is superior to all other values. You can believe whatever you want and live however you want, but if you value unity with all other people above all else, you are one of us, a member of the Israeli people.

The diversity of the ancient Israelites forced them to forge an extremely powerful union, something that could overcome ancient rivalries and natural suspicion. When they succeeded and united “as one man with one heart,” they became a model that the world could replicate if it were to aspire for peace among all people.

After centuries of struggles and infighting, the people of Israel succumbed to the alienation among them, and unity was no longer their superior value. The people dispersed and were exiled from Israel, and the Jewish people have become the world’s pariahs. Not only did they become the opposite example of the one they were meant to serve, but in doing so, they denied the world of hope that there could be peace among all people. This is why Jew-hatred is so pervasive.

Now that we are back in Israel, we have a chance to reestablish our unity. If we can exalt the value of unity above all other values, we will once again be a light to the nations, and we will win the world’s favor. We will win the struggle over Israel without a fight not because the Arabs will surrender, but because they will want to join our unity and will want us to set the example that they, too, need.

But if we succumb to infighting once again, there is no question that our enemies will win and drive us out from Israel no matter how superior our military capabilities may be. The fight against terrorism, therefore, will succeed only if it is a prelude to the real battle: against our hatred of each other.
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Question: What does “reincarnation” of a person mean? What is being reincarnated? What part of a person disappears and what remains?

Answer: Nothing. If a person in this life strives to reach the upper purpose, the upper world, the upper existence, then he must use everything that he has in this world to do so in order to enter the upper world, that is, the quality of bestowal and love, to become a giver, as good as the Creator.

Then he has the opportunity to be similar to the Creator to some extent and to exist in a different dimension, in the quality of bestowal and love for everything around him.

Comment: It is clear to everyone that the human body remains in the ground and that there are no reincarnations of physical bodies.

My Response: Why not? The body decomposes into its parts that also participate in some kind of circulation of material in nature.

Question: A person is his thoughts, desires, and consciousness. What passes into the next reincarnation? What is left of a person?

Answer: Consciousness may remain. Desires remain, aspirations remain.

Comment: Yes, they do not disappear because they are not material.

My Response: But they are located in a material carrier. These qualities of a person do not disappear only if they are not similar to the qualities of our world—not receiving but bestowing.

Bestowing qualities are found not only in the one who carries them but in the one to whom they are addressed. Therefore, if a person has a will to bestow, then he is as if within others, as we usually say: “He lives in others.” Then he really exists independently of his material carrier.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/9/22

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Question: In the material world there are states of birth and death, childhood and old age, and in the spiritual world this is expressed in the expansion of perception. What does the expansion of perception mean?

Answer: Each time you don’t die, but, as they say, you change your “skin.” You change all your instruments, desires, and insights for new ones.

The cycles for you do not go through a complete shutdown, as it is in our world, because you do them yourself. You yourself go from one state to another, and therefore, they are controlled; they are desirable.

A person does this himself, within himself, and attains the upper world. He begins to gradually expand these boundaries, to feel himself in another.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Expanded Consciousness” 8/14/13

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Question: Have you always spoken in an eloquent way?

Answer: I have always been able to speak beautifully. People were even amazed at my Russian, although I did not study anything specific. However, I have read tens of thousands of books. I have always been very inquisitive. We had a subscription for technical magazines such as Knowledge is Power, Science and Life, Radio, magazines about art, and others. At that time I walked around all the museums in St Petersburg (Leningrad at that time) and in Moscow.

In general, I was swallowing tons of information as I had an unsatisfying thirst. But I have understood quickly that it does not give anything. I moved here from Russia for the most part because of the untamable thirst for knowledge. It seemed to me that I would not be able to gain it there. And indeed all interesting jobs were off limits for me.

However, when I moved here exactly the same happened to me. In addition, all my conscious life from 18 to 30-years-old I spent searching and at the same time I suffered greatly from an ulcer in my duodenum that led to terrible bleeding. A doctor friend told me that nothing would help me and said, “You have such a personality, it will get worse.”

As soon as I started to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, within a year or year and a half I realized that this wisdom has all the answers and the ulcer started to go away. After all, I had come to the source that I gradually had to unearth. Of course, I still had a multitude of questions, nothing was clear, and I was in inner conflict, but I was already in the theme.

I did not know Kabbalah and did not understand it, but I still was in it. I was getting satisfaction studying it and catching it.

Gradually the ulcer disappeared and there was nothing left. Today all my x-rays are absolutely clear.

Later on when I started to attain the wisdom of Kabbalah, everything started to assemble into one single picture like a song, a pleasure, or a joy. There was nothing else I needed. I was ready to sit in my room practically all my life because I was seeing eternity as I was delving in it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Man in Attainment” 7/21/13

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Question: You have a certain function, you are a link of spiritual transmission. What if this physical connection between you and your students is interrupted? You are a link they cannot do without.

Answer: There is no such thing as “cannot.” It will happen! The main thing is the connection between you. If you have the right connection between you, you will continue everything correctly and well. The main thing for me is to lead you to this.

I don’t think there will be any one person who will lead the World Academy of Kabbalah or the World Academy of Integral Connection, Upbringing, and Education. This function will be assumed by the spiritual, physical board of directors.

If you stay together, you will always find the correct step forward in the right connection between you. And I will always be with you, just a little hidden.

Of course, it is easier for one person to direct because he is a student of Rabash, thus he knows more and so on. So you have to force the friends who make up the board of directors to be correctly united, then, from this connection they will draw everything they need for the ensuing right path: reason, desire, and direction. Then you can listen to them.

In no way should you go against it! I stand behind them covertly, just as I am now in contact with Rabash. And although, sooner or later, I will disappear from your eyes, I will still remain in touch with you through these ten people, just as Rabash is in touch with me, and through me, in fact, in touch with you.

Question: Why is it that when you remember Rabash, you are overcome with emotion?

Answer: Because I’m talking about the person most dear to me. It’s natural.

Comment: But if you are in connection with him, you should not be emotional.

My Response: How so? What if I am next to him, and suddenly I’m overcome with emotion? This is no different, it doesn’t matter where you are.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Transmission Link” 8/13/13

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Comment: We really want to believe that there is some kind of continuation after death. Something inside us demands it.

My Response: If we tried to fill our life with some deep upper meaning, then we would cherish it, fear for it, and try to find out what kind of continuation it could have. But based on the way we live, what can we expect? And reincarnation? Again, in something like a spinning wheel, well what is good about that?

Comment: If you look at it from one side, we really value our lives and want to know if there is a continuation—who I was and who I will be. On the other hand, we treat it so lightly. There are so many wars and various dangers to life that we create ourselves. It turns out somehow illogical.

My Response: We ourselves devalue our lives. It does not look like a person appreciates it very much.

Comment: Maybe we value our own life but not the lives of others.

My Response: We relate to our personal life this way not because we really value it but because we are afraid of the unknown.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/9/22

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Comment: If dissemination of our method is successful, is this not a very good sign?

My Response: No. Dissemination should go well. At the same time, you reveal that you lack one more parameter in this scheme—the Creator.

It does not mean that you have failed. On the contrary, due to the fact that you have done everything successfully and efficiently, you reveal what exactly was still missing. This is what you need for the next step. In this way you are constantly moving forward.

How do we reveal all things, improve all devices? We do something successfully and suddenly we reveal it would be nice to add something else to this.

Therefore, our duty is to convey the truth to every person. What the result of our work will be is not our business, but we must do it as well as possible. And this means disseminate wherever possible, as widely and clearly as possible.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Hidden Information” 8/13/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your thoughts on freedom of speech?“

There is no freedom in our world, and while our world exists in its current form—running on a motor of human egoism, where we each aim at benefiting ourselves at the expense of others—then we can expect no freedom.

Freedom of speech, the way we currently understand it, is that we let everyone take to the streets, so to speak, and yell whatever they want. Everyone yells and no one listens to or understands one another. If it is genuine freedom of speech in such a form, then no one listens to anyone else because everyone only focuses on what they yell. In other words, we currently define freedom of speech as everyone’s opportunity to yell whatever anyone wants.

I see freedom of speech differently—as the freedom to remain silent. It is much more beneficial for us to keep our mouths shut. Instead of pressuring, influencing, coercing and deceiving each other, we would do ourselves a much bigger favor by staying silent.

If our current media would freeze and enter into a new mode of stillness, then we would start feeling our own selves. Instead of pressure coming at us from all directions, we would instead start feeling questions such as “Who am I?” “What am I?” “What do I live for?” and “What do I truly want?” We would discover that we each want to say something, but we would think hard about what we want to say, what others expect of us, and what we should ideally convey to other people. In other words, we would discover that we really have no freedom of speech.

True freedom of speech is when we have the most important, sacred and beneficial information to bring people. It is a speech of the heart, where we open up our hearts so that we understand each other without words.

We need to reach a state where we peel off the egoistic crust that has accumulated over our hearts, open our hearts, aim them at positive human connection, and enter into a common heartbeat of the entire planet. We do not need to pay billions of dollars, like Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, for freedom of speech. Instead, we need to live and breathe the inclination to open our hearts.

Based on the video “What Is Freedom of Speech for a Kabbalist?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash “What Are the Two Discernments Before Lishma“

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions”

Selected Highlights

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