New Life 471 – The Hellenization Process Then And Now
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Which world views represents the Greek ideology in contrast to the Jewish world view? How will it help us understand the true reality if we understand them, and how is this related to the meaning of Hanukkah?

The Jewish people were educated to love others, to ascend above the egoism. They were on a spiritual height. Jewish ideology is totally different from any other ideology: the body in contrast to the soul.

Philosophy and science are also perceived in our ego so they are considered earthly. We perceive the world by absorbing it and we have developed this perception into science. For everything beyond this there is mythology.

In Judaism it is the opposite: a person does not perceive internally, inside himself,  but exits himself in love and bestowal.

We naturally perceive the world through a filter of “what do I gain from this.” And we can transcend that. When we change our approach to reality, we perceive a wide reality that is whole and eternal.

This is what the Macabbees fought for. Today we all perceive the world according to the Greek approach, and the time has come for an upgrade.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 471 – The Hellenization Process Then And Now,” 12/14/14

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In the News (The Telegraph): “Men finally grow up at the age of 43 – a full 11 years after women ‘mature’, according to a new survey.

“A study into the differences in maturity between genders revealed both men and women agree men remain ‘immature’ well into their late 30s and early 40s.

“But the average age at which women mature emerged as 32.

“Alarmingly, eight out of ten women believe that men ‘never stop being childish’…”

My Comment: During my childhood when I looked at the girls in my class, I was surprised at how early they matured in their thinking and their outlook on life. I felt that I was still far from them. I was very interested in understanding the enormous difference that exists between boys and girls. Girls have an attitude toward life like little women, whereas boys are only interested in soccer, volleyball, etc. Males’ development occurs much later, if ever.

Today it is difficult for a woman to find a partner and marry a man who will provide her with a feeling of support. She wants a man by her side who will give her a feeling of support, psychological support more than physical, because in the modern world a woman can provide everything for herself materially, but simple psychological support is imperative for her. Unfortunately, men do not receive the appropriate training for this.

Question: Why is the maturity of men in our day so impeded?

Answer: It is because we are living much longer, our lives don’t require us to mature. A man can remain in his parents’ home all his life, do any kind of work for a salary, and live with peace of mind. Everything is ready for him, electrical appliances and prepared food; he doesn’t need anything more than this.

I don’t think the age of 40 is the line at which he becomes a man. I see that today even men at the age of 50-60 are still children. They don’t want to take on any responsibility, shoulder any burdens, or work for the family.

A woman is ready to take responsibility for the sake of a family and children. A man is not ready even for that.

We must educate a person to be a spiritual person so that he will understand that he has a higher goal and must create a particular environment around him for this. He needs to understand why he exists and how to build himself.

If we begin to educate him this way, he will begin to mature at the age of 15-20, and toward the age of 20, he will have already been shaped into a man.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/5/16

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Question: In the first year of the development of an infant, should a mother pay attention to something more than love and concern?

Answer: A mother should pay attention to all the states that she gets from the Creator, primarily through her love for her child, and through her child as well.
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New Life 470 – Hanukkah Then And Now
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What special meaning awakens from this holiday specifically nowadays, and why in each generation do they rise up to destroy us, and what miracle do we expect to happen for?

Hanukkah talks about ideological clashes between two approaches to life: materialistic versus spiritual. The Jewish elite adopted the materialistic approach from the Greeks. They abandoned the altruistic approach of love of others.

Abraham taught connecting with love, being one, and discovering the one supreme force. When we unite and become one, we are similar to the one supreme force, and then it shines on us. But a connection like this requires a struggle against the egoistic tendencies that naturally awake in us.

When we stopped working on connection, we lost the connection with the upper force, the Light of life left the world. As a result, troubles from the outside world come upon us. They forced us to once again connect. It happens in waves. Today we are in a similar state. We live in Israel, but there is no connection and love between us during normal times.

During two thousand years we were living among the other nations of the world and caused their development There is an upper energy in nature called Light, which can connect between differences. Our task is to bring this Light to everyone. We want to be as Europe is, each one for himself and to just be left alone. And this is anti-Israel. Mutual guarantee is the foundation of the nation of Israel and without it we have no right to exist.

The darkness of day is the lack of our ability to grasp that if we don’t unite, we are not a nation. Strong egoistic urges awaken in us, hatred and separation, so that we can help each other to rise. Each person is like a keg of gasoline, which can explode at any moment. It is specifically from within the great darkness that the Light arrives.

Hanukkah symbolizes that the world is waiting for us for the Light, for the force of life that will connect everything in harmony.
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From “New Life 470 –  Hanukkah Then And Now ,” 12/11/14

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Question: By what criteria will society assess a person in the future? According to one’s wealth, looks, or status?

Answer: I don’t think people will relate to physical appearance in the future, not even men. This will gradually disappear from our perception and it will include only the internal attributes of a person and one’s correct internal balance.

A person’s behavior and character will be the outcome of his internal state because not only will he begin to relate to everything correctly, but he will also aspire to bring the whole world to the middle line.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/3/16

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New Life 469 – The Meaning Of Hanukkah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

What is the meaning of the holiday of Hanukkah, what do we celebrate and what is the important role we have toward the whole world that it reminds us of?

The nation of Israel was born from the mutual commitment to be as one man with one heart, with love of others. Whenever there is separation between us, others rise up to destroy us. Then something comes to remind us we need to unite.

We also need to increase love between us in the family, until we become “All Israel are friends.” Today, in Israel, there are many security threats. If we unite between us, everything will disappear.

The miracle of the oil symbolizes that it is possible to reach the Light, the upper force, that will help us to connect. The Temple symbolizes the connection between the hearts when they become one large heart. The menorah symbolizes what we attained: through connection it’s possible to be rescued from all problems and to defeat everything.

The Maccabees symbolize the tendency to connect, and they awaken the whole of Israel from its hibernation. Man himself includes the Greeks, the Hellenists, and the Maccabees. The Greeks symbolize the egoistic attributes, the Maccabees symbolize the small tendency to connect and to love, the point in the heart. If man wants to find these forces of the soul, he can win the inner war within himself.

The Hellenists symbolize the Jewish tendency to be like Europe, each one only for himself.

The Jewish spirit is to be connected and loving, to discover the upper force between us, and to bring Light to the nations. Jewish life is when everyone is concerned about everyone else and each one thinks of how he can do good for the collective.

When we as Israelis adopt the European approach of individualism, we have no Light.

The world depends on the Light that we bring, the energy of life. The lack of Light brings hatred to Israel.

When there is no mutual concern and everyone is for only for himself, troubles befall a person. And when there is connection and love, then everything works out, i.e., at home, with the children and the family, with health, and at work.

At the political level, if we ignite the Light between us and light up the world, the world’s attitude toward Israel will change for the better.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 469 – The Meaning Of Hanukkah,” 12/11/14

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New Life 654 – Hanukkah: Light And Darkness In Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The desire to enjoy: If I am the one who benefits, the Light doesn’t enjoy, darkness. There are more upper desires that aren’t in us from birth—the desire to fill others, to give, to bestow. It isn’t the bestowing that brings us joy, but rising above the ego, in this way man becomes the source of light.

Then a person matches the general source of Light in nature, the Creator, discovers Him, and feels immense pleasure.

Spiritual life is connecting to the source of Light and the influence of the Light on others; today, our duty is to learn this. The pursuit of fulfilling your private desires is the “Greeks” and bestowing fulfillment to others is the “Maccabees.” The real development of your personality is only when you learn to be equivalent to the Creator, meaning bestowing.

The Greeks sanctified the ego, pleasure for oneself with no consideration of others, only one’s personal achievements. The Jewish approach says that in this way we destroy ourselves and the world, like a cancerous growth that swallows everything. The pursuit of fulfilling your private desires brings you a little spark of light here and there, nothing more than that.

The Jewish approach is that it is possible to attain great Light only when you, yourself become the source of Light. And then man becomes eternal and complete, and bursts through all borders of perception, and becomes equal to the upper force.

When you become the source of Light for others, you become unlimited. You don’t have to produce Light, but to be the source of Light, with the Light passing through you, like an electric outlet. When you want to pass Light from one to the other, you discover that everyone is connected to a network and connected to the source of life. An unending stream of energy fills our emotions, intellect, consciousness; it is the life of the soul.

Today we give and receive from within the desire to exploit all for our own benefit. Spirituality is loving one another. It’s not just to understand what this is, you should come and study seriously and achieve this in practice.

Hanukkah is the holiday of light, we need to learn to ignite the Light through connection between us. When we connect to others, their emotions and intellect pass to us. And we become infinitely smarter and more sensitive. My blessing for Hanukkah is for the Light to come between us and fill us and direct us to the good upper life.
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From KabTV’’s “New Life 654 – Hanukkah: Light And Darkness In Life,” 12/1/15

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New Life 444 – Hanukkah: The Maccabean War Against The Greeks
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

What does Hanukkah symbolize? What is the war that took place between the Maccabees and the Greeks and how is it related to the goal of the creation and to the role that the nation of Israel has to fulfill?

Hanukkah symbolizes a person’s first spiritual ascent.

The Greek’s domination is a shell, Klipa, an evil force that limits our consciousness so that we will not feel the Creator. The Greeks did not demand a change in our corporeal life; they wanted to control our spirit. The Greeks objected to our worship of our God according to which, through love of others, a person connects to the Creator.

The Maccabean war was an ideological war about the definition of who and what the upper force is. The main war was between the nation of Israel, between the Maccabees and the Hellenists. The nation of Israel exists only because it has a spiritual root. If we are not connected, there is no nation of Israel.

Yashar-El means that through the love and connection between us we reach a greater love, which is the upper force. We build a shelter by the love between us that will be able to absorb the upper force that is absolute love and bestowal.

Idolatry exists even today. We worship the “God of science,” for example.

Hanukkah symbolizes our return to our internal war, to connecting to others and to discovering the upper force between us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 444 –  Hanukkah: The Maccabean War Against The Greeks,” 10/7/14

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In the News (TechCrunch.com): “Xavier Niel’s new project is an ambitious coding university in Silicon Valley called 42. But the trick is that it’s nothing like other universities out there. …

“This isn’t Niel’s first try at building a coding school. 42 has been doing well in France. … there are already 2,500 students learning to code right now in Paris. But what makes 42 different?

“42 is nothing like your average university. There’s no teacher and no classroom. Students are expected to learn a set of skills in 3 to 5 years. The school relies on peer reviews, coding projects, internships and gamification. If you stay motivated for 3 to 5 years, you’ll become a good software engineer.”

My Comment: This is a very good method because it reconstructs the human level in a person and makes him self-reliant, responsible, and ready to communicate. The shared assignments build the mutual connection between the students. The students do the assignments together; they do the homework together and are in a mutual connection, which is wonderful.

We are reaching the point where the computer will be the doorway to a world through which a person will be able to attain everything so the old form of education will gradually disappear.

Question: What about the lecturers, the doctors, and the professors?

Answer: Their role will come down to writing books, programs, assignments, exams, workshops, etc. There is no need for lectures as the academic institutions will switch to self-learning methods.

Question: What I find most striking in this process is that the students check each other’s assignments. What impact will this have?

Answer: Certainly this will oblige them to be integrated, it will tighten the connections between them and will bring them together—not detaching and disconnecting them as working on a computer usually is.

Eventually we have to discover the need for contact and a tight connection with each other. Later, we will discover that every essential area in life, in society, in the economy, in commerce, etc.—everything relies only on the right mutual connection between people.

The right connection, just like in technology, is based on the fact that plus and minus connect through a resistor between them, where positive energy is released. I am sure that eventually everyone will discover this. Our role as Kabbalists is to explain that this is the correct law of connection of all the positive and negative attributes people have, of all the views and inclinations in society, and that it is all necessary to create the right connection between us. This is the only way humanity will safely ascend to the next level of its evolution, to spirituality.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/9/16

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New Life #334 – The Wisdom Of Relationships
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Summary

We live in a world that is highly connected but with a lot of inequality and we suffer from conflicts in relationships. How can we learn to establish connection and good communication between us?

In the past, people were categorized into classes, and relations were clear and simple. Today, all the boundaries have been breached, the differences between people are disintegrating. Interdependence has been created between everyone. In the end we will have to be like brothers. But until then, all relationships will be confusing.

The best means to develop correct relationships is discussions in connection workshops In connection workshops we discuss the correct relations between people, we try to be equals, to be close to each other. The attitude of equality and mutual acceptance is the basis of all good relations between us. In the connection workshop, a person acquires integral eyeglasses and through them he sees his life in a new light.

Today a social educational system should be established that will clarify the need for us to connect. On the one hand, the world has become one global village, everyone depending on each other, and on the other hand, great hatred is revealed.

In the state of interdependence, we must learn to consider others, to pass from narrow egoism to mutual acceptance.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #334 – Me and the society: The wisdom of Relationships,” 4/1/14

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